


The Inverse Must Also Be True

by madsaialik, spectreleaders (SilverSie)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Role Reversal, ben and poe are childhood friends fight me, don't worry rey is still a feral lil shit, first of all snoke didn't bright s h i t, gave ben solo a decent childhood but it's never too late to sprinkle in new traumas, novel characterization Finn deserves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:20:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsaialik/pseuds/madsaialik, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSie/pseuds/spectreleaders
Summary: "He hunched over to crawl into the belly and immediately froze. The interior was cool and empty, but the air was oppressive with some lingering thing. An attentiveness ran along his spine. There was a cluster of dried, brittle desert flowers. His boot scuffed against a handmade doll fashioned from reclaimed orange flight suit material. Then there was the wall marked with hundreds of parallel scratches, long, marring scorch marks cutting across, and the smell of ozone and fury. He didn't have to touch the saber damage to feel the loneliness imbibed into the wall of the AT-AT. The muted, blinding sunlight dimmed in the open hatch, sinking into glowing darkness that did not belong to this desert world. Ben sighed, recognizing the beginnings of a Force vision. It would not let him go until he saw what it wanted him to see. He stepped out, not onto the sand but into snow."OR: Rey's fate always began in the desert, only changed by who found her therefirst.
Relationships: Kira Ren/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 24
Kudos: 64





	1. Jakku

**Author's Note:**

> this fic started as a demonstration of how well Rey and Ben mirrored each other and intertwined no matter the verse setting, but now i'm just mad. Most of the writing is framed around the work in the novelization by Alan Dean Foster ~~(who needs to be fired for saying Takodana is "evergreen" because clearly that man has never seen a color in his damn life, running out of adjectives and calling a _tropical_ forest planet "eVeRgReEn"-- my grievances with Mr. Foster after painstakingly picking apart the novel are many)~~
> 
> Many thanks to Jess for sticking with me as I start to write on this again, editing, and beating my tense changes with a stick. Love you babe ♥ --Mads

LUKE SKWALKER has vanished.

In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

With the support of the REPUBLIC, General LEIA ORGANA leads the brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother, Luke, and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy. Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to JAKKU, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke's whereabouts…

* * *

Barren, sand-swept, and an unexpected place to harbor secrets. The galaxy is a swath of thick threads of lies and truths, enigmas and axiom— this primitive place was no different. With no one passing over, or even through, it was a rich place to find and expose hidden things. A peaceful place that bore hard people with harder wills. Despite apparent desolation, nocturnal animals broke anticipated silence, locals chatted with their neighbors in various dialects.

Poe's fatigue of past and future circumstances, both dangerous and difficult, weighed on him. He did his best to not let it show, countered with a proud visage easily mistaken for arrogance framed by dark, thick waves of hair. Leia's confidence in him had carried him this far, drawing his mission to a close. Already he was impatient to fulfill the task at hand and deliver the mystical map back to the resistance base. The rural village of Tuanul felt oddly anticlimactic.

"These days I can only do so much. Would that I could do so much more." Lor San Tekka sighed deeply. "And there is so much more that needs to be done. But… this will begin to make things right."

"Legends say this map is unobtainable," Poe noted, "How'd you get it?"

The older man just smiled, as unwilling to release his secrets as the singing dunes surrounding them.

Poe grinned back at him, accepting it. "I've heard stories about your adventures since I was a kid. It's an honor to meet you. We're grateful."  
Tekka shrugged— an old man's shrug, slow and full of meaning. "I've traveled too far and seen too much to ignore the despair in the galaxy. Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in the Force."

"Well, because of you, now we have a chance. The General's been after this for a long time."

"Oh, the General? To me, she is royalty."

"Well, she certainly is that." Poe didn't bother to mention to not say that to her face.

Rather than stay and attempt to make conversation on casual philosophy, Poe thinks it’s time for him to depart. He is reasonably secure in his knowledge of such things, but also intelligent enough to know that he could not discuss in-depth with someone like Lor San Tekka.

He was about to take his leave when a frantic metal sphere rolled into the room, barely braking in time to avoiding hitting the two men and began to spew a stream of electronic chatter. Poe had his quadnocs in hand even before he stopped running. Aiming them at the section of the sky indicated by BB-8, he let the integrated automatic tracker focus on the four freighters on the horizon. Tekka didn't need quadnocs. He had already identified the incoming ships by the sound they made as they finished their descent. "Not to overstate the obvious, Poe, but you need to leave."

Poe wanted to stay, to help protect the outnumbered villagers. His gaze hardened, hesitating only for a moment to carry out the rest of his mission. He and BB-8 raced for the outskirts where Black One was settled behind a short rock outcropping He needed to get out of atmo and fast. He hurriedly climbed into the cockpit as BB-8 rolled into the copilot position, both activating the controls, seamlessly working together through rushed preflight prep. The X-wing was an instrument made of three parts— ship, man, and droid. Instruments flared to life as a swarm of stormtroopers approached the village.

Smoke and dust rose from the devastated village, indistinct screams rose and cut off. It was an act of excessive violence.

His ship was hit in mere moments, jarring him against his seat. In vindication, he lowered the pivotal gun from the belly of the X-wing. Poe flinched as the ship shuddered slightly; the engines were too damaged to safely escape. Poe lands heavily on the sand after dropping from the cockpit, not bothering with the ladder. BB-8 bumps into his calves, a sensation hardly noticed over the dismay of the grounded Black One. Stormtroopers might not be tactically sophisticated, but at least one had a lucky shot.

"You take this. It's safer with you than it is with me." Poe slipped the map into BB-8's internal storage with an order. "You get as far away from here as you can, do you hear me? I'll come back to you. It'll be alright."

The shuttle that descended last was far more imposing than those in which the troopers were familiar with its raptorish silhouette and high, folding wings. The bay door opened, allowing three figures to depart. One particular trooper, one designated FN-2187, flinched at the sight of the dark and cloaked frame, something hidden and made more fearsome by a metal mask. She ignored the chaos of the uneven battle and headed unerringly in the direction of Lor San Tekka. Struck by the indifference to the developing fray, the trooper numbly rejoined his ranks. He watched as she did not waver in her course or objective, ignoring startled stormtroopers and armed villagers alike. She moved with the barely contained omnipotence of raw power. An unnamable dynamism lacing her gait and clenched hands.

Tekka halted and waited, recognition and resignation slithered over him.

She examined him closely like one would a relic in a museum. The black mask, with its slitted forehead reflecting flames and battle marked. Thick, wolflike breathing apparatus, covering the face of Kira Ren.

Once, he thought he had known the face behind the mask, had known the girl. Now, to San Tekka, only the mask was left. Metal instead of memory.

Ren spoke first, without hesitation, having long-awaited this meeting. Her voice was distorted, the sick flavor of the disembodied. “Look how old you've become."

Tekka expected no less, "Something far worse has happened to you."

There was no reaction, no outrage. He could feel the pressure building in the base of his skull. She never did bother to learn control. "You know what I've come for."

"I know where you come from, in the time that you didn't call yourself Kira Ren," He states evenly, "or were you always a lie?”

From behind the mask, a growl: feral, but still human. "Careful. The map to Skywalker; we know you've found it and now you're going to give it to the First Order."

"The First Order rose from the dark side. You don't belong with them. You could have stayed."

"I'll show you the dark side," she snarled softly, shoulders shifting.

"You may try, but you cannot deny the truth that is your past," Tekka tries again, but only rage flares, giving way to righteous fury. The predatory curl of her spine straightened as a false calm spread, the way yellow clouds churned before a storm. Prepared and centered, both of them, for the only foreseeable conclusion.

"You're so right," She says as her lightsaber flares to life, a barely stable crimson shaft spits and crackles. Like it’s maker, it creates a unique, otherworldly thrum. Light, refulgent and cutting, ripped across the figure of Lor San Tekka.

Poe saw the saber ignite, the start of its lethal arc. Half crazed and wholly powerless, knowing he was too late, he fires. Kira Ren reacts immediately, hand outstretched sharply. Her palm facing an unknown assailant. The gesture merely the physical manifestation of something infinitely more powerful and entirely unseen. Behind the mask, eyes of preternatural intensity track the frozen bolt to its source. The invisible barrier stretches. Heart pounding and lungs heaving, Poe cannot move. He is paralyzed as effectively as the bolt from his blaster.

A pair of stormtroopers took hold of him and dragged him past the straining energy caught vibrating midair. The troopers force him to stand, helpless, before the now impassive Ren. He attempted bravado even so, "So who talks first? Do I talk first?"

Poe realizes she is much shorter than the way she carries herself. Having her lightsaber returned to her belt, Lor San Tekka's murderer scrutinized him casually, gaze settling on the details of the pilot’s clothing. "Search him."

“It’s just very hard to understand you with all the—,” he gestures to the mask, jerking his hand back when she looks at it, and finishing lamely, “apparatus.”

"Nothing," one said after the short examination left Poe ruffled and feeling less than dignified.

Kira Ren did not let her disappointment show. At such times momentary delays were not unexpected. All would be satisfactorily resolved, in a good time. "Put him on board."

The senior officer in charge of the special squadrons drew herself up at Ren’s approach. A black cape of rank hung loosely around her. It stood in startling contrast to her armor, which even in poor lighting shone like polished silver.

"Your orders, sir?"

Kira Ren studied her blazing surroundings and its whimpering survivors. "Kill them all."

It wasn't a massacre. In the lexicon of the First Order, it was nothing more than a prescribed chastisement for harboring a fugitive.

Captain Phasma gave Ren a single nod. "On my command!"

A line of troopers stood before the assembled villagers. Their reactions were typical, some stepping forward, insolent to the last. Others fell to their knees. Ren is already desensitized to pleas and defiance alike, but there was no need to watch. She turns before the order is given.

"Fire!"

It was the nature of the tutorial that was important, not the numbers involved. It took less than a minute.

* * *

Among the unholy crackling and muted chatter of other troopers, FN-2187 lowered his unfired blaster. The weapon hung at his side limply, tugging on his conscience. He had frozen during the battle, even as mismatched as it was, the villagers gave as good as they got. Each snapshotted memory flashed. Next to him, a trooper had been shot straight on, collapsing in a mass of shattered armor and shredded skin. A torn, bloody glove lifted toward a would-be rescuer. Stumbling through the fray without assisting either side. Horrific and all too common red-stained ground. The smell of smoke so thick it came into his helmet and curled against him, stinging his eyes. Flames did not rise from the sand; they rose from homes, small workshops, storage buildings. Seeing a woman with the look in her eye of someone who realized she's already dead. The hiss of the command shuttle’s descent, wings folded in like a bird returning to its nest.

Combat was not what he expected it to be. Unlike simulations, reality bled.

Standing by himself, blood and dust smeared across his visor. Startled when a hand of a comrade lands heavily on his shoulder, he did not dare to relax. A question came without malice, "Notice you didn't fire. Blaster jam?"

FN-2187 nodded automatically, promising to follow up on the other's advice or turning it in for inspection back at base.

No sooner than his helpful colleague stepped away to rejoin his own unit, the trooper looked up to see the dark-clad figure stride past. Every one of her actions was purposeful, so when she stops terror jolts through him. Kira Ren turned and looked sideways, directly at the soldier. He only saw fire reflecting off a mask, and his own fear.

There is a slight tilt of her head, an assessment scavenged, calculated, and stashed.

_She knows. She must know. And I'm… dead._

But he wasn't. The glance lasted barely a second. Ren looked away from him at last, resuming her pace. She returned to her shuttle seemingly deep in thought. The bolt of energy slung forward, free at last. FN-2187 can't help but think of it as a warning, or an omen, as the village center crumbles.

The purification extended to the outskirts, where a clutch of stormtroopers finished their inspection of the damaged X-wing. Specialized gear could have stripped the Resistance fighter to its component parts, but better to send a message. Heavier weapons soon reduced the ship and rock outcropping to rubble.

The sound of the explosion reverberated across the shifting sand of the dunes. A singular, spherical droid looked back even as it continued to flee. The fireball that rose into the sky suggested the detonation of something far more volatile than primitive buildings and scrapped mechanicals. If he could roll faster, the frightened droid would do so.

Contrary to popular belief, desert worlds are not quiet at night. In the absence of light, an entirely different ecology springs to life. BB-8 tried not to pause at each howl, every meep, the sounds of clawed feet scraping against bare rock. His internal gyros threatened to send him tumbling wildly at the very chance of an encounter.

Droids such as him were not meant for unpopulated places. It desperately desired to find others like itself. Or, failing at that, even people.

In the impressive receiving bay of the Star Destroyer, troopers were filing out, grateful that more of their number hadn't been lost on the short expedition. Others looked forward to rest and food. Intent on reliving the skirmish below, they paid no attention to one of their own left behind. When he was convinced that no one was looking at him, the trooper turned and raced back into the open transport. He clawed at his helmet, the terror on his face palpable as he pulls it off. There is no one to witness his crumbling act of sedition; he merely wanted to breathe.

There was, however, now someone behind him.

Fear gave way to a different, colder terror as he found himself gazing back at Captain Phasma. Aloof yet commanding, she indicated the rifle he still carried.

"FN-2187. I understand you experienced some difficulty with your weapon. Submit it for inspection by your division's technical team."

"Yes, Captain." He managed to reply without stammering. Instinct and self-preservation in a moment of desperation as opposed to training.

"And who gave you permission to remove that helmet?"

He swallowed hard, "I'm sorry, Captain."

"Report to my division at once."

Shattered, FN-2187 replaced his helmet. Worse, he knew miserably, was likely to come later.

* * *

Poe felt defeated— not from the beatings delivered with practiced skill. He had failed his mission, Leia, and the Resistance. When he succeeded in shutting out the pain and ignoring their questions, he realized they were a mere introduction to his principal interrogator. That formidable individual arrived on her own time. Recognizing her from the village, Poe threw himself against his bonds in a final, supreme effort to break free. Demanding the last of his strength, his failure left him completely exhausted. She watches, silent and bemused, but that could be his imagination. It was just as well, he consoled himself. Fighting against the figure now standing before him would be counterproductive at best. Fighting and resistance, however, were two different things, and he resolved to focus what remained of his energy on the latter. Doubtless, his inquisitor could sense his determination and made her more acquisitive.

Her greeting was far from challenging, but the sarcasm underlying Kira Ren's words were plain enough.

"I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board."

"One out of two, at least," he said through battered lips.

"Comfortable?" she asked in the same indifferent manner.

"Not really," He did his best to sound nonchalant, gestured with his shackled hand as best he could, "The accommodations leave something to be desired."

"I'm impressed," Her tone did not reflect the statement, flat and unsurprised of her subordinates’ incompetence, "No one has been able to get it out of you. What you did with the map."

"Might want to rethink your technique," he responded equally phlegmatic.

Kira Ren said nothing as she loomed over her shackled prisoner. She reached out for his face, not touching him. Within a second, Poe was in agony and remained in horrible silence as he feels her shifted through his mind without finesse.

"Where is it?" she demanded. Poe saw her flinch through blurred vision. Oddly, it is the last memory of his friend in their hangar, telling Poe not to be reckless. An impossible task. Perhaps the last time he would ever see him.

"The Resistance will not be intimidated by you." Poe readied himself when she pulled back to study him. Her head snapped up.

"There is no 'Resistance' in this room. Only the pilot Poe Dameron. And I."

Her hand extended again, the silent torment continued.

"Tell me," Ren murmured, "Where… is it?"

General Hux was waiting for her. As expected, the interrogation had not taken long. The senior officer did not ask if it had been successful. No matter how determined the prisoner, no matter their individual resolve, Ren's questioning invariably produced the same results.

The voice that emanated from behind the mask was both ageless and dispassionate. Most find it easy to forget that she is only nineteen standard years of age. The concept of the Supreme Leader's creed molded into flesh rather than a young woman. "It's in a droid. A BB unit."

Hux is plainly pleased, though that meant nothing to her.

"Well then. If it's on Jakku, we'll soon have it."

"I leave it to you then." Ren brushed past him, moving to other matters to attend to. Privately, she wondered why a man of someone else's memories is familiar to her and how desperately she wanted to stay off Jakku.

* * *

Ben Solo had decided that it was all very convenient that the binary tracking beacon on Poe's X-wing went dead in Jakku, leaving him raking a graveyard of ships for his friend. Black One was easy enough to find in the destroyed village of Tuanul. There was no organic evidence to continue the train of thought that he could be dead. BB-8 was missing as well, another suspicion that lead Ben to think perhaps they escapeded the First Order’s hounds.

Mountains of metal, cliffs of plasticene derivatives, oceans of splayed ceramics were jumbled together in a phantasmagoric industrial badlands. It made him feel ancient, looking at the bones of these giants. The picture stirred something inside of him, something that went beyond his 29 years. Somewhere in this mess of grit and sand was Poe, his idiot friend, that he would absolutely head into the same danger to rescue. He covered his panic with irritation, a necessary coping mechanism in the meantime. The rough fabric of his protective gear grated against his skin, the hot wind whistled through grand, decaying ships. Niima Outpost is not a place he dared to bring his T-70, leaving him on foot between dusty towns. Ben tried to imagine living in such a place, trapped and unable to move on, but can't. Simple moments— refueling, bartering, daily rituals— left him unbalanced to witness. This world was stagnant.

Not lost without his R2 droid, but at a disadvantage with how the heat warps the image of shadow and horizon. Ben ripped off his goggles, while his other hand yanked the scarf down his chin.

Determination lined his face and furrowed his brow. Wisps of dark hair curled against his forehead, escaping from under the makeshift mask. This time on Jakku had been a series of anxious movement and building consternation.

The heat, already unbearable, soars to an even higher degree. Ben, feeling stranded for the first time, stopped at the peak of the dune. Sand shifted beneath him as he came to a stop. He had already tapped the few stubborn drops that clung to his insulated canteen. Torn in the choice between backtracking to seek refuge in the hollowed-out Star Destroyers and pressing onward, Ben huffed.

Right as he turned, still unsure of his own objective, he could see something like metal in a valley between two cresting sand drifts. A half-destroyed AT-AT walker laid as a monument to rotting military might but would give him adequate cover. He hunched over to crawl into the belly and immediately froze. The interior was cool and empty, but the air was oppressive with some lingering thing. An attentiveness ran along his spine. There was a cluster of dried, brittle desert flowers. His boot scuffed against a handmade doll fashioned from reclaimed orange flight suit material. Then there was the wall marked with hundreds of parallel scratches, long, marring scorch marks cutting across, and the smell of ozone and fury. He didn't have to touch the saber damage to feel the loneliness imbibed into the wall of the AT-AT.

The muted, blinding sunlight dimmed in the open hatch, sinking into glowing darkness that did not belong to this desert world. Ben sighed, recognizing the beginnings of a Force vision. It would not let him go until he saw what it wanted him to see. He stepped out, not onto the sand but into snow.

He thought, not for the first time, what would have happened if he had trained with Uncle Luke. Dead, he reminded himself harshly, or equally lost like the one who survived.

Apprehension filled him in the equally barren woods of tall, spiny branched trees. He only noticed the sounds of unknown forest animals when they went silent. The temperature was steadily dropping as if suddenly ripped away from all warmth it had ever known. The crunching of a stumbling two-step staccato made him turn to see a hooded figure step out from between trees. Thick robes and the imposing mask made them androgynous, but the way their shoulders shifted made him think of rock-lionesses. Regardless, they were an apex predator. With a cock of their head as if it came across another one of its kind in the wild, a tense moment to see whether the other would bow or lunge.

The lightsaber flared to life, the red-orange energy in harsh relief of their shared surroundings. Ben's lip curled at the sight of the Master of the Knights of Ren. The blaster at his hip would not save him in a Force vision, but it didn't stop him from drawing it and firing.

As if the lightsaber came down, the heat of Jakku returned just as sharply. Another burn mark added to the wall with the others. He placed a hand on the wall, not feeling the anger he expected, just incredible desolation and overwhelming loneliness.

When the rest of his senses finally returned, the first thing he heard was a frantic beeping. Feeling no more rested even though the sun shifted considerably, Ben stumbled out on weakened knees.

Reaching the top of the nearby dune, he found himself gazing down at a sight as curious as it was unexpected. Trapped in the net of local organic material, a small and familiar spherical droid was attempting to escape, an effort rendered difficult by the fearful mechanical's total absence of limbs. Mounted atop the squat, four-footed, square-helmeted luggabeast, a native Teedo was struggling to constrain and reel in the legless but overactive and insubordinate droid.

"Hey!" Ben shouted as he tripped down the sandy slope.

Motion ceased as both the Teedo and BB-8 stopped wrestling to peer up at him. The droid chattered enthusiastically, shifting under the net.

Making an effort to simultaneously control both it's heavy-headed mount and it's captive, the Teedo yelled back through the mouthpiece of the goggle-eyed helmet that covered its reptilian cranium. Its attitude was decidedly unconciliatory, even threatening. Meanwhile, the imprisoned droid swiveled rapidly back and forth, trying to watch both the Teedo and the human.

Ben immediately took offense, not only at the Teedo's tone but the gist of his speech, which far exceeded the bounds of common courtesy between complete strangers.

Descending further down the far side of the dune, Ben took out his knife and began hacking at the netting.

Observing that it was on the verge of losing its prize, the Teedo unleashed a stream of indigenous invective. None of it had the slightest effect on Ben, who continued cutting away at the mesh until the native promulgated a slur that would have been vile in any language. Pausing in his work, he turned to face the tightly bound creature, gesturing with his knife and fairly spitting the reply.

"Watch it. The droid is mine, I'm taking it."

Long and drawn out, Teedo's response to this would have been unprintable on any of the hundreds of civilized worlds. Ben, raised with a protocol droid, can only stare. Turning the metal-enclosed head of its mount, the unpleasant scavenger departed in the opposite direction.

Ben waited until the native was a safe distance away, bending on his knee. "Where's Poe?"


	2. Finalizer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trooper stared at him for a long moment. This moment that tipped his life into before and after.
> 
> “You need a pilot.”
> 
> The trooper sighed in relief, his body sagging under the weight of the heavy armor and something more. "I need a pilot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my adoption papers for finn and poe have been filed

Slumped and shackled against the rack, Poe was still breathing. Beyond that, he no longer cared about what happened to him. It wasn't his fault, he kept telling himself, willing the statement into truth. For an ordinary person, no matter how strong or valiant they thought themselves, resisting the probing of a creature like Kira Ren was simply impossible. He had tried. There was no shame in his failure. Defeat did not come naturally to him. His hands weren't free to rub away the ache in his chest.

It didn't trouble him what they might do to him now, though he could guess. Having given up what little value he had possessed, he was no longer of any use. There was nothing about the X-wing weapon systems the First Order did not already know. As a mere pilot, he would not be expected to know anything about military movements or tactics. He had rendered himself expendable. No, not expendable. Less than that. He was now extraneous.

His head came up as the door to the holding cell whooshed open and a stormtrooper entered. At least, Poe mused, it would be over soon. He could look forward to freedom from further torment and his own thoughts. The trooper's words to the room's single guard surprised him, however.

"I'm taking the prisoner to Kira Ren."

Poe sagged against his restraints. What more could they want from him? Everything, anything of value that he had known was now theirs. Had they overlooked some line of questioning? He could not think of one. But then, at the moment, his mind was not in prime condition.

The guard had questions of his own. "I wasn’t told to expect you. Why would Ren want the prisoner outside the cell?"

The new arrival's voice darkened. "Do you dare question Kira Ren's motives?"

"No, no, that's not what I meant! I…" Without another word, the guard proceeded to release Poe from his shackles. It took twice as long as it should have, since in his sudden nervousness he kept fumbling with the task.

Procedure demanded the trooper keep his weapon trained on the prisoner at all times. Together they made their way down the corridor. Another time, another place, Poe might have considered making a grab for it. But he was far too weakened and broken of spirit to contemplate such a likely-fatal error. In any case, the trooper seemed as competent as all his kind and gave no indication of relaxing his vigilance.

A rough prod with the weapon's muzzle caused Poe to stumble and nearly fall. So exhausted was he that he could not even raise an objection or mutter a curse.

"Turn here," the trooper commanded sharply.

The passageway they entered seemed unusually narrow and poorly lit. In contrast to the one they had just left, they encountered no personnel. No troopers, no techs, no general crew.

A gloved hand clutching his shoulder brought him to a halt. Poe took in his claustrophobic surroundings. An odd place to carry out an execution, he thought with resignation. He wished there were at least windows, so he could pretend it was a cockpit. Apparently, they were not going to make a show of him.

The trooper's words came out low and fast. "Listen carefully: you do exactly as I say, I can get you out of here."

Within Poe's wounded brain something like cognizance stirred. He turned and gawked at the trooper's unseeing mask. "If--what--?"

In lieu of reply, the trooper removed his helmet, an act so shocking and unthinkable that Poe could only stare. A human with brown skin, dark and cool, against the frantic heat of his eyes struck Poe with astonishment.

”Listen,” he continued in an anxious if exaggerated whisper, “This is a rescue. I’m helping you escape.”

Poe finally stopped gaping at the younger man and found his voice. "What's going on here? Are you-- with the Resistance?"

"What? No!" The man sounded almost stunned at the implication as he gestured at their surroundings. "I'm breaking you out. Can you fly a TIE fighter?"

That seized Poe out of his stupor. "I can fly anything. Why, why are you helping me?"

The trooper paused with an uncertain look, visibly struggling to put into words why he was doing this crazy, impossible stunt. Something like desperation in his eyes, a longing for freedom, a pleading that pulled Poe in.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

The trooper stared at him for a long moment. This moment that tipped his life into before and after.

“You need a pilot.”

The trooper sighed in relief, his body sagging under the weight of the heavy armor and something more. "I need a pilot."

Poe nodded. A wide smile broke across his face, a hero's smile. "Well, you got me."

The trooper was taken aback by Poe's quick agreement. Unsure, but hopeful, the trooper slipped his helmet back over his head. For an instant, the whole enterprise teetered on the edge of believability. Was he being set up? Poe wondered. No longer needed, was he being made the subject of some cruel psychological trial only to be thrown away at the conclusion? Yet his manner, his look: there was something about the trooper that made Poe believe he could trust him.

The trooper pointed back in the direction they had come. "This way. And stop looking so positive."

Optimism doesn't fit a prisoner's profile. Poe obediently lowered his head and adopted as morose an expression as possible. Once, as they re-entered the main corridor, a hint of a smile broke through, to be quickly quashed.

The longer no one intercepted them or questioned their passage, the more Poe dared to allow himself hope. What they were attempting bordered on the insane. Escaping custody of the First Order, much less from inside a Star Destroyer, was nearly impossible.

Nearly.

The very infeasibility of it worked in their favor. He could not be a prisoner trying to escape, because prisoners simply did not escape. Just as stormtroopers did not desert their posts to facilitate such flight. Ordinary troopers were one thing, though— the group of officers coming toward them as they entered the hangar was quite a different matter. Face still resolutely aimed downward, Poe tensed and fought not to meet their eyes. Beside him, the trooper nudged him gently with the end of his blaster and muttered tightly.

"Stay calm, stay calm."

Poe swallowed as the officers drew near-- and walked by.

"I am calm," Poe whispered.

"I was talking to myself," the trooper said frankly as they maintained their methodical tread toward the far side of the enclosure.

"Oh, boy." Poe muttered, this time to himself.

"Act nervous," the trooper advised him. "Like you're being sent to your doom."

"Thanks for the tip, buddy." Poe said dryly.

The craft they were approaching was a Special Forces TIE fighter. Poe couldn't help it-- raising his gaze, he raked the ship with his eyes. If one discounted its origins, its dark angles took on a deadly beauty. No one stood near it. What reason could there be to have to post a guard next to a ship inside a Star Destroyer? The entry hatch was open. Open and inviting: He had to will himself not to break into a run. There was no telling if the fighter was functional, or if it was being monitored by automated hangar security.

The interior of the TIE was spotless. Droids and techs had done their work well, leaving it ready for a pilot and gunner. It was a true pilot who now settled himself into the cockpit command seat. As to the missing crew member, that remained to be seen.

Slipping free of his bloody, confining jacket, Poe examined the controls laid out in front of him. Some were familiar from his professional studies of First Order ships, others from perusing details of old Imperial crafts. What he didn't recognize he felt sure he could work around. A modern fighter like this one would be naturally forgiving, its computational components engineered to compensate for pilot miscues and oversights. He was relying on the likelihood that the ship itself would automatically correct for any minor mistakes in judgement.

Minor mistakes. He still had to fly the damn thing.

Movement behind him caused him to glance back over his shoulder. Having shed his helmet, the trooper who had freed him was settling himself into the gunner's seat and struggling to make sense of his surroundings. Poe tried to project reassurance as he punched instrumentation. A whine began to rise from the ship's stern.

"I've always wanted to fly one of these things," Poe said. "Can you shoot?"

"Anything designed for ground troops, I can. Blasters."

Poe noted that his companion sounded less than confident. "Same principal! Use the toggle on the left to switch between missiles, cannons, and mag pulse-- use the sight on the right to aim, triggers to fire!"

Leaning slightly forward, the trooper tried to absorb what he was seeing as well as what the former prisoner was telling him. There were far more controls than those he was hearing about. Which were the ones he really need to worry about?

"This is very complicated," he confessed.

Freed from his shackles, then freed from captivity, Poe was not in the mood that allowed for a period of leisurely instruction. For one thing, he doubted he was going to have the opportunity. Any second now, someone was going to wonder why the Special Forces fighter was lighting its engines with the hatch closed.

Working semi-familiar controls, he persuaded the ship to lift. Unfortunately, it was still tethered to support lines. Cables twanged as they went taut, holding the TIE fighter to the deck.

"I can fix this!"

Inside the main control room for Hangar Six, a confused tech turned from his console to the officer passing close behind him.

"Sir, we have an unsanctioned departure from Bay Two."

The First Order colonel halted, turned, and stared out the sweeping port that overlooked the hanger door. At the far end, a fighter could be seen struggling to decouple from its support cabling. Neither the apparent preflight movements nor the fact that cabling was still engaged made any sense.That they were occurring simultaneously suggested a serious miscarriage of duty-- or the inconceivable.

"Get me communications with the vessel. Alert ship command, notify General Hux, and stop that fighter!"

Throughout the Finalizer, confusion expanded exponentially. Departments were alerted that normally were unexercised. Off-duty personnel were roused to the sound of alarms ringing on their personal communicators. Contradictory commands flew back and forth between bemused sections. A large majority of those alerted responded slowly and reluctantly, confident that what they were responding to was nothing more than a drill.

No such illusions afflicted the hurriedly-assembled troopers who were struggling to push the heavy weapons platform into position on the hangar deck. The musical sprang of cables snapping away from the TIE fighter pressed them to move even faster. The officers in charge were shouting, but no command could ready the weapon any quicker that its energizing program allowed.

Seeing the burgeoning threat on the other side of the hangar, Poe proffered his companion some urgent advice. "Okay-- now would be a good time to start shooting."

Behind him, the defecting trooper's gaze wandered desperately over the plethora of controls laid out in front of him.

A massive wave of blasts from the TIE fighter's primary arsenal punctuated the durasteel. Internal weapons emplacements shattered. Troopers and mobile cannon obliterated.  
Parked TIE fighters were reduced to rubble, fragments of fuselage and wings bouncing off the deck, ceiling, and walls. One collective burst demolished the hangar control room.

Before there had been calm, now there was bedlam, alarm, and fire.

The latter was extinguished when the fighter lifted, spun on its axis, and Poe activated the TIE fighter's departure mode. It had been locked down by the hangar controllers, but when FN-2187 imploded the operations center, all electronics had gone neutral. The Special Forces fighter had no trouble resolving the problem, automatically issuing the necessary directives.

The trooper yelled, even though there was no one save Poe to hear him. Accelerating, the craft blasted clear of the Star Destroyer's flank, leaving in its wake a splay of smashed fighters, dead troopers, and an assortment of ruined accessory material.

Poe was becoming more and more comfortable with the vessel's instrumentation. In a short period of time, his mood had swung from fatalistic to exalting. Not only was he alive, not only was he free-- he had a ship! And what a ship: a Special Forces TIE fighter. He was certain of one thing as he maneuvered around the immense destroyer: nobody was going to make him a prisoner of the First Order again.

"This thing really moves." He shook his head in admiration. Fine engineering knew no politics. "All right, we gotta take out as many cannons as we can or we're not gonna get very far."

A little payback wouldn't hurt either.

The trooper had expected them to run as far and as fast as the TIE fighter would take them. "Shouldn't we go for lightspeed as soon as we can?"

A tight, humorless grin crossed Poe's face. "Someone on that ship called me the best pilot in the Resistance. I wouldn't want to disappoint her. Don't worry, I'll get us in position. Just stay sharp and follow my lead."

Still unhappy with the direction their escape had taken, FN-2187 relaxed ever so slightly. "I can do that."

It wasn't a ship, Poe told himself gleefully as he manipulated the manual instrumentation. It was a part of him, an extension of his own body. As fire began to lance out toward them from the immense starship, he whirled and spun the fighter, utilizing predictors as well as his own skills to avoid blasts. Taking them underneath the mother ship, he danced back and forth and through gaps and openings, executing maneuvers beyond the abilities of all but the best pilots. Several skirted the edge of believability. Poe didn't care. He was free, and he was flying.

Behind him, the renegade trooper unleashed blast after blast, triggering explosions in a frenzy of random damage that could only panic and confuse those on the vast vessel above them. A brace of cannons loomed ahead-- but the trooper seemed content to fire indiscriminately at their surroundings. That needed to change, Poe knew, or they would never get the chance to jump to lightspeed.

"Up ahead! Up ahead! You see it? I've got us dead center. It's a clean shot."

Targeting controls brought up the major weapons emplacement into bold view on the trooper's screens. "Okay, got it." He readied himself, then unleashed fire at the precise moment when aptitude interlocked with instrumentation.

The whole gun emplacement erupted in a rapidly shrinking fireball. Debris spun around them as Poe took them through the devastation, the fighter's shields warded off whatever he could not directly avoid.

Unable to restrain himself, the trooper let out a yell that echoed around the cockpit. "Yes! Did you see that!?"

Poe whipped the TIE fighter around to the side of the Finalizer. "I saw it! Hey, what's your name?"

"FN-2187."

Poe flinched; this told him volumes about FN-2187's history.

"FN-wha--?"

"That's the only name they ever gave me."

The longing in the troopers voice was all too human. That, and something more. Something that had driven him, among his hundreds, his thousands of colleagues, to step outside the comfort of training and regimentation, that had ignited some exceptional spark of individualism within him. Poe knew that spark was present in the man behind him, and now made it his task to see that it did not fade away.

"Well I ain't using it. FN, huh? Finn. I'm going to call you Finn! That alright?"

Behind him, the trooper considered. Even in the madness, Finn can't suppress his smile.

"Finn. Yeah, Finn, I like that! I like that!"

"I'm Poe. Poe Dameron."

"Good to meet you, Poe!"

"Good to meet you too, Finn!"

On the main bridge of the Finalizer, General Hux peered over the shoulder of Lieutenant Mitaka. While there could be no single central command center on a vessel as enormous as the Star Destroyer, Mitaka's console approximated such a position as effectively as anything could.

Hux was in a state of muted shock. Not only had the prisoner escaped, but he had also managed to find his way to an operational hangar, slip aboard an outfitted and ready-to-fly fighter, and blast his way free. If the proof hadn't been right in front of him, making a treacherous nuisance of itself as the ship's preceptors strove to keep track of the stolen fighter, Hux would not have believed such a thing possible.

A very slight shudder ran through the deck. Mitaka's voice was even, but Hux could tell that the lieutenant was shaken by what he was seeing. "They've taken out an entire bank of defense weaponry. And they continue to attack. They're not running."

Hux didn't understand. It was beyond comprehension. Prisoners ran from prisons, they didn't stick around to assault their jailers. The action smacked of an unshakable wish to commit suicide. What he knew of the escaped prisoner strongly suggested a desire to live. What had happened to change him? Or, Hux thought, was the profile that had been drawn up by the psytechs simply wrong?

Formal profile or not, of one thing he was not certain: They had badly underestimated what had seemed to be a Resistance pilot on the verge of physical and emotional collapse.

"Sir, they've taken out the turbolasers--"

"Engage the ventral cannons," Hux ordered.

"Yes, sir. Bringing them online," Mitaka said.

No matter how close a flight path the escaped pilot took, Hux knew that sensors would prevent the guns from firing adjacent to the ship's structure itself. An exceptional pilot that he was, the escaped prisoner would know that, which was why he continued to fly so close to the destroyer's surface instead of bolting for empty space.

Now Hux was counting on the pilot sustaining the same strategy. The longer he remained within the destroyer's sphere of armed influence, the more forces could be brought against him, and the less chance he would have to make a second, more permanent escape.

Mitaka sunk lower into his chair. Then Hux feels her, thinning the boundary between his skin and recycled air before her voice sounded behind him: unmistakable, controlled, and plainly displeased. "Is it the Resistance pilot?"

Hux turns to face Kira Ren. The metallic mask made him unable to perceive eyes or mouth, one had to rely on subtle changes in voice and tone to try to descry the woman's mood. More often than not, it felt like she was toying with him.

"Yes, and he had help." Vexed, Hux loathed to admit it, yet he had no choice. "One of our own. We're checking the registers now to identity which stormtrooper it was."

While the all-concealing mask made it difficult to tell the focus of Ren's attention, it was clearly not the general. Through the grace of the Supreme Leader’s training, as distant as she became, Ren was always centered with fatal points in her sight. The way a sated predator watched the neck of any prey animal straying too close, a matter of opportunity.

"FN-2187."

It unnerved Hux that Kira Ren had managed to ascertain the identity of the rogue trooper before the ship's own command staff. But then, Ren had access to a great many aspects of knowledge from which ordinary mortals like himself were excluded, Hux knew. He would have inquired further, but the dark figure already turned and headed off. Ren's indifference was far more unsettling than anything as common as a straightforward insult. Shaking off the encounter, Hux turned his attention back to the lieutenant's console.

"Ventral cannons hot," Mitaka reported quietly.

"Fire," Hux commanded.

One detonation followed another as the Finalizer's weapons system struggled to isolate the darting TIE fighter from the debris among which it danced. Poe was constantly changing his flight path, never doing anything predictable, utilizing the destruction he and his companion had already wrought to confuse the predictors that were an integral part of the big guns' operating systems. Though more debris provided more cover, Poe knew he couldn't keep up such maneuvering much longer. Ultimately, the damage he and Finn had caused would be reduced to fragments, and then to powder, by the efforts of the destroyer's weapons. Bereft of anything to hide, the fighter would eventually catch a powerful laser pulse. That would be the end of the game. Before that happened, they had to get clear.

No doubt every gunner, every weapons system operator on the destroyer, was just waiting for the stolen fighter to break outsystem preparatory for making a jump to lightspeed.

Their attention would be focused in those directions, away from the ship and toward the great expanse of the galaxy. The last thing they would expect someone escaping from the vicinity of the planet Jakku to do would be to-- head for Jakku.

As Poe sent the TIE roaring toward the desert world below, a hand reached back to rap him on the shoulder. "Where are you going?"

Behind them, a few desultory blasts erupted from the Star Destroyer. It would take very little time for the great ship to bring all of its power to bear on the fleeing fighter. But very little time was all a pilot like Poe needed.

"We're going back to Jakku, that's where." As if, he thought, the brown and yellow globe expanding rapidly in front of them wasn't indication enough. But could sympathize with Finn's confusion. What they were doinggoing made no sense. Always, he knew, the best way to avoid predictability. Even if it was a little mad.

"What? Jakku? No, no, no! Poe, we need to get out of this system!" The TIE fighter rocked as one near-miss after another reached from the destroyer and Poe fought to confuse any automatic trackers. Finn's voice grew calmer, but only slightly. "Oh, okay, I got it. We're going sub-atmo, circle the planet, and strike for lightspeed on the other side, out of the big girl's range, right? Right? Tell me I'm right, Poe."

Poe didn't bother to shake his head, focusing on the fighter's wonderfully responsive controls. "I got to get my droid before the First Order does."

Finn gaped at the back of the pilot's head. "What-- a droid?"

"That's right. He's a BB unit! Orange and white: one of kind."

Feeling slightly numb, Finn slumped against his seat before his voice rose anew. "I don't care what color he is! No droid can be that important!"

Poe let out a private, knowing grunt. "This one is, buddy."

"We need to get as far away from the First Order as we can! We go back to Jakku, we die!,” Finn countered.

Poe could not dispute Finn's logic, but the pilot's stance was unshakable, so he ignored it-- just as he had set aside a reason when he rushed into the village in a futile attempt to save the life of Lor San Tekka.

Of course, he reminded himself, that hadn't turned out so well, either. But he was nothing if not truthful. He had sworn an oath to the Resistance, and he had no intention of breaking it now. No matter how bad the odds. He took a deep breath. Although it meant a serious breach in protocol, Finn deserved to know the truth.

"That droid's got a map that leads straight to Luke Skywalker."

Poe could mark the exact moment that the full impact of his declaration to hit home. Finn shifted abruptly in his seat. "Oh, you got to be kidding me! I--"

Even as he spoke, a burst from the destroyer intercepted Poe's last evasive effort. Sparks flew within the cockpit, followed by an eruption of acrid smoke and fumes. The fighter's engines flared wildly, twisting violently. And since it was headed straight toward the surface of Jakku, that was where it continued to race-- out of control.

Finn quit looking for something to shoot at because his instruments had gone completely dead. Coughing, fighting for breath, he yelled in the pilot's direction. "All weapons systems are down! My controls are neutralized! You?"

There was no reply, save for the now continuous shrilling of the fighter's alarms. Finn waved at the increasingly dense smoke as he strained forward toward his new friend-- and drew back in horror.

Poe was not moving. His eyes were shut. Blood streamed down his face.

"No-- no! Poe!"

No response came from the unconscious pilot. Eyeing him in the closed, smoky confines of the cockpit, his own eyes filling with tears that had nothing to do with the increasingly bad air. Finn couldn't even tell if the other man was still alive. The blackness of space was gone now, completely blotted out by the suddenly proximate surface of Jakku. Finn knew there was no way to safely set down an undamaged fighter, much less one in this condition.

He did, however, figure out the location of the seat’s eject control. Equipped with a manual override in the event of total electronics failure, it was clearly marked. Gripping the handle, he wrenched on it as hard as he could. Neither the extra muscle nor additional adrenaline was necessary. The handle moved smoothly and without resistance. A moment later, he felt his body being ripped away from the TIE fighter. The universe spun wildly around him. Briefly, his sight was filled with alternating visions of the yellow planet, black space, and white clouds.

Then he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment? spare comment pls??
> 
> thanks for reading!!!!


	3. Niima Outpost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We can't outrun them!"
> 
> He pointed to the shiny, red, four-engine craft toward which they were running. "These ships are garbage. We might escape in that."
> 
> Finn shook his head. "I'm a gunner. We need a pilot!"
> 
> "We've got one," Despite the danger, Ben had started to grin at the quad-jumper. But then he skidded to a stop just as the two TIE fighters roared overhead. Instead of firing at the now stationary targets, their gunners directed bursts of energy at the fugitive’s original direction. The quadjumper came apart in a ball of fire, flinging bits and pieces as the detonation scorched the landing area. Ben didn't notice, his attention on a different ship entirely. If some part of him was doubtful of the Will of the Force before, he was certainly a believer now. Then again, the Falcon had a way of getting Solo’s out of trouble.
> 
> “It can’t be…”

On the Finalizer command deck, General Hux had moved away from Mitaka's station. Wandering from console to console, he proceeded to question a succession of technicians and fire-control officers.

"FN-2187 reported to my division was evaluated, and sent to Reconditioning." Captain Phasma reported, the holographic projection detailing the stormtroopers service records glinting off chrome. Nothing in the file indicated him different from his comrades. Nothing to distinguish him as a person, as a soldier, as an exception.

"No prior signs of non-conformity?"

"This was his first offense." She answers, coolly. Phasma betrayed nothing other than a professional interest in the episode or the man.

The whole incident had to be tapered down, obscured, and buried lest the germ of an infection spread through the ranks. If there was one thing a competent fighting force did not need, Hux knew, it was unforeseen outbursts of individuality.

The building anxiety that he had managed to keep restrained was greatly lightened when one tech looked up at him to report.

"General. They've been hit."

Hux's expression didn't change, but he felt considerable relief. He studied the techs console, his gaze flickering rapidly from one readout to the next. The details coming in appeared conclusive, but in this matter, there was no room for analytical equivocation.

"Destroyed?"

The tech's response as he studied his instruments confirmed the general's circumspection. "Disabled. They were headed back to Jakku-- the fighter's projected to crash in the Goazon badlands."

Hux nodded thoughtfully. "They were going back for the droid-- send a squad to the wreckage."

* * *

Finn came to with a start and gasping shudder. In his panic, it felt as if it took him longer to free himself from the grasp of the ejected gunner’s seat than it had to fall from the plunging fighter to planetary surface; the clips and buckles were seemingly determined to keep him from ever standing on his own. Finally, he staggered free and took in his surroundings.

His spirits dropped in the valleys between dusky dunes stretched in all directions, to every horizon. Blue sky and sand and the invisible line between were more forbidding than the blackness of space. He was alive, but if the terrain in which he presently found himself was anything to go by, not for long.

The warships that had largely been his home were sealed environmentally-controlled little worlds. Anything one needed was readily available, right at hand: Food, water, occupation, sleeping facilities. All were no more than a few steps away. It was more than a little ironic that someone comfortable in the vastness above should suddenly find himself suffering from a touch of agoraphobia.

Glancing skyward, he expected to see a landing craft dropping in hot pursuit from the sky that is wider than he thought possible. The unblemished blue on the edge of something too complex for the human eye and wholly empty. His gaze was rewarded only by the sight of a pair of native avians soaring southward. They looked, he decided uncomfortably, too big to be herbivores.

Something else manifested over the eastern dune. A black chute of smoke rising in the sudden drop of wind. Violently, a gust of wind forced the column sideways and disperses over scattered debris. It stung his eyes as he rushed toward it, struggling with the remnants of his armor. Hope told him Poe was still alive, but Finn did not know if he had been able to eject both seats. Logic insisted that it was impossible to escape the First Order spacecraft and survive the fighter's crash. Not that it would matter if he was found here, wandering alive among the dunes. Of one thing he was certain: his former colleagues would not understand, no matter how hard he tried to explain. The First Order was so much bigger than him, looming even larger the smaller he felt in this endless expanse. No one fled and lived.

The sand sucked at his feet as he stumbled toward the rising smoke.

"Poe! Poe!" Hope had bubbled up for so long under his growing disquiet among his ranks, now willed so violently that he thought he heard the response he did not dare expect on the gusts of hot, sand-scratched air.

Flame had joined the smoke in enveloping the wreck of the TIE fighter. Built more robustly than the typical ship of its class, the Special Forces craft had shattered upon crash landing, although hardly intact. Shards of metal and solar paneling from the impact scattered over the wide area. Not caring if he cut himself on still-hot composite, he pushed through the heat and haze until he reached the cockpit. It lay crushed and open to the desert air. Trying to shield his eyes against the smoke, Finn moved closer. Something-- there was something sticking out of the wreckage. An arm.

Ignoring the heat and the licking flames, Finn reached in until he could get a grip on it. First one hand, then both, and pulled-- and it came free. No arm, nobody: Just Poe's jacket. Frustrated and desperate, he tried to enter the ruined cockpit. Increasing smoke and heat made it impossible for him to even see, much less work his way inside.

"Poe!"

Finn felt his anguish pull his legs out from under him. But they hadn't buckled; the ground had. Looking down, he saw sand beginning to slide beneath him. His feet were already half-covered and sinking at a new rate. In front of him, the ruins of the ship began to slide into the hollow in which it had come to rest. Sand was crawling up the wings and reaching greedily for the open glass of the cockpit. If he didn't get away from the quicksand, it was clear he was going to join the TIE fighter and the pilot Poe Dameron. He began backpedaling fast out of self-preservation rather than thought, yelling at the disappearing vessel.

"POE!"

Going. Down, down into the sand, to a depth that Finn could not imagine. He scrambled to find safe footing, maybe it would settle just below the surface. Maybe much, much deeper. The more the sand covered the fighter, the faster the vessel sank, until in a few moments it was completely consumed. Joining it was most of the debris that the hard landing had thrown aside. There was nothing. Nothing to prove that he didn't sur—

A violent explosion erupted almost beneath his feet, sending him staggering backward. For an instant, the substantial fireball that blew skyward flared an angry black and red. That too was swallowed by the sky of this hungry planet. Regaining his footing, he stumbled forward. In place of the vanished TIE fighter, there was nothing but fused sand. Nothing more, and certainly no sign of another human being. Unlike the fighter, in the case of his friend, there were no surviving fragments.

Drained of energy and overwhelmed, he looked around wildly, only seeing silent dunes that absorbed the sound of the blast. Not even sound was safe here.

He had escaped. He had survived, landed intact and apparently unharmed. He inhaled all his exhaustion and defeat and screamed at the empty planet, let it take his disorientation and terror as well.

This day filled with one impossibility after another, Finn felt no surprise that the heat continued to intensify. Squinting into the glare, he saw nothing in front of him but sand. Sand interrupted by the occasional salt flat followed by more sand.

A shape was coming toward him, sharp outlines resolving themselves out of the distance mirage. A rising, unsteady whine accompanied the rapidly expanding vision. Some kind of craft out here, in this blasted nothingness, and it was coming straight for him. Staggering, he raised his arms and began yelling loudly as his parched throat would allow.

"Hey! Over here! Hey!" At this point, he didn't care who was in the vehicle. Anything, anyone, as long as they had water to spare.

The speeder merely dipped down the cresting dune, not veering from its course, and leaving Finn and dry dust in its wake. He muttered under his breath, utilizing words and phrases from some half a dozen worlds that would have seen him busted in rank had he employed them in the presence of an officer. No need to concern himself with anything like that anymore. He was no longer a trooper for the First Order. What a terrible time for that oppression to lift from his shoulders. Finn coughed a laugh of disbelief. The sensation of freedom wasn't very impressive yet, but it was something.

Where was he? This wandering between dunes was taking him nowhere. He needed a goal, a destination, for this new resolve to be directed towards. His gaze rose. A better view would work for now.

There are physical tasks more daunting than climbing a steep sand dune, but few that are as frustrating. One step sliding backward every time he lifted his foot. Determined to make it to the top, Finn kept fighting, legs churning, until at last he stood on the crown of the golden ridge. The first glimpse of his surroundings was as disheartening as he feared: more sand, piled into slightly lower dunes. In the distance, there was a speck that suggested civilization. A settlement would have water and shelter from the sun. If he was exceptionally lucky, it might even find transport.

* * *

Entering the command bridge, Kira Ren's presence throbbed like a fresh wound. Blue and red light glinted off the edges of chrome, the snout tilted at the sight of the standard-issue trooper history and training records Hux continued to study.

"Finding the flaw in your training methods won't help recover the droid." Although her mask concealed her facial expression, the rage simmering below her calm demeanor was palpable.

"And yet, there are larger concerns," Hux insisted. It was evident from Hux's tone that he held no amicability to Snoke's Knight. The feeling was mutual; neither took pains to hide their contempt.

"Not to me." The façade of composure dropped with a growl.

Typical Ren, Hux thought. Self-centered, arrogant, indifferent to the interest of others.

He especially had a hatred for how easily his thoughts seemed to be poached from his mind, projected onto the grooves of her inscrutable mask.

Careful, he reminded himself, unsure if the warning was pushed onto him or not.

"The Supreme Leader made it explicit that the Resistance can not acquire the map to Skywalker. Capture the droid if we can. Destroy it if we must."

Ren paused to consider the general's words. "A simple enough task, or so it would seem. Find one droid. Just how capable are your soldiers, General?"

Hux turned away from the trooper's holofile. He respected Ren and her abilities, but he was not afraid of her. She didn't move as he did a very dangerous thing of stepping into her space. The blank mask looked up at him with weighted silence, shorter but larger than him in different ways.

"I won't have you questioning my methods." He said with vitriol.

"What methods would those be, General? Those that allow a single trooper to free an important prisoner from confinement, escort him to an operating hangar, and assist him to a takedown of nearly every weapon bay? What methods teach such expertise? Obviously, your troops are skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army."

It was with great difficulty that Hux restrained himself. "My men are exceptionally trained— programmed from birth—"

Ren interrupted the general's impassioned speech before she had to listen to him drone on. "Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid. Unharmed."

"Do not let your personal interest interfere with orders from Leader Snoke."

Ren's voice darkened to a degree that caused Phasma to take a step back, a terrible, low snarl in the static of the modulator. "I want— that map. For your sake, I suggest you get it."

Before Hux could object again, Ren turned and departed back the way she had come. If she felt his hate, she chose not to respond to it.

* * *

Jakku had burnt him, dehydrated him, and tormented him— but it had not beaten him.

What was a little sunburn to someone who defied the First Order, freed its prisoner, and tore a Star Destroyer apart? Finn told himself under the protection of Poe’s jacket, held aloft to shade him from the unbearable sun.

His body was not as easily persuaded, shouting its displeasure at its recent treatment and threatening to collapse at any moment as he finally stumbled into Niima Outpost. Old ship parts towered over him, relics of a different time, heralds of space travel past. Merchants and traders eyed him speculatively. Some scavengers pointed and joked. Others, having suffered similarly from blowing sand and grit and sun, expressed murmured sympathy. That was all the stranger was offered. Jakku did not coddle the weak.

Something large, filthy, and slobbering was drinking from an open water trough. Gaping at it, Finn ran his tongue over the dry roof of his mouth and decided he didn't care what it was. The water is what he was interested in and what he ran toward.

With cupped hands dipped into the dingy liquid, he drew water into his mouth. It felt wonderful against his lips, it tasted awful in his throat. He spat, choked, winced-- revolted.

His body overrode his brain. Fighting the urge to gag, he drank. The unsightly lump of four-legged flesh of the happabore eyed him owlishly but otherwise ignored him.

* * *

Ben knelt beside BB-8, the excitable droid beeped madly.

"Easy, easy-- you're going to drain your cells." He patted the curved metal. "Of course, we're going to find Poe. Why were you guys on Jakku anyways?"

More frantic beeping made Ben jerk back, "What do you mean classified? We can't find him if you don't tell me—"

The droid paused. When it spoke again, Ben ran a sand-rough hand over his face, his exasperation palpable.

"No, I understand, you can't tell me. Poe's secret mission, sure." He started to rise, frustrated and not a little angry. The droid moved closer, bumping into him gently, something like an apology. Ben made a brief show of ignoring its entreaties before bending once more.

Unable to voice its own agitation, BB-8 settled for spinning several times on its axis. When it stopped, it began to explain. Ben found himself listening closely to the steady stream of carefully composed beeps and squeals.

"I figured the First Order destroyed Black One. Rumor has it an attack squadron of theirs destroyed a sacred village right close to here, over near Kelvin Ravine." Ben saw the aftermath and heard the whispers as he passed through villages, it wasn't hard to imagine that the First Order was responsible for the slaughter of an entire village. BB-8’s next series of beeps caused the mask of indifference to fall from his face. He stared at the spherical droid with growing dread. Ben figured that Poe had gotten himself into trouble, the reality of it was much worse.

"What do you mean, you were there?"

He would have forced answers from the droid if not for the interruption. Ben didn't recognize the two thugs approaching but sensed their malintent. Halting when Ben rose, towering over the pair of them: twin masses of cheap desert clothing, even their faces completely covered. One glanced at BB-8, the nearest was quick to confirm Ben's suspicion.

"I already told you the droid is not for sale."

"Plutt wants droid. We take droid. Male don't interfere."

"The droid is mine." He shot back.

"You're right." agreed the other thug. "Plutt knows that. You didn't sale. So he take."

His companion was already pulling a sack over BB-8. When Ben moved to stop him, the other speaker grabbed his arm.

Finn didn't know if the happabore was tired of sharing its space or was simply being friendly when it pushed him over. So indistinct was the gesture that Finn couldn't tell if it was a deliberate butt or just amiable nuzzle. Whatever the creature's motivation, it knocked him right off his feet.

This new perspective gave him an excellent view of the confrontation that had started up in the nearby marketplace of covered stalls. He frowned at the two younger beings that thought they could take down whoever was their massive adversary. Rising, he impulsively moved to help the larger man. However, the nearer he drew, the less concerned he became; Finn didn't think the man was enjoying himself, but with the ease he moved, it was a different sort of release.

A twist and a flip, and suddenly the brute who had been trying to keep a hold on him found himself on the ground. When the thug's companion rushed over to assist his downed associate, he found himself at the harsh blow of an elbow. The man's hand came back and forced the man to the ground by tipping him forward. In short order, both ruffians found themselves prone and unconscious.

Impressed but still wanting to lend a hand, Finn watched the man ignore the figure sprawled on the ground to assist the moving sack at his feet. What he saw was nothing like what he expected. From a distance, he had been unable to tell, but this close there was no mistaking the identity of the spherical droid.

Poe's droid.

The man spoke to it reassuringly, it shook itself, turned its head, and saw Finn. Whereupon it twitched to one side and began beeping like someone had pulled its rationality chip.

This cybernetic disputation did not unsettle Finn half as much as the expression on the man's face. His jaw tensed at the first, slow step that pushed him into a charge. The already tall human had gotten much larger in the closing distance.

Finn dodged, barely, and begun to run, trying to find a path through the marketplace, wondering what he had done to set him off. More than bewildered at the turn of events, all he had done was move to render aid. Then the droid had seen him, had said something to upset the other man, and now Finn was running. Again.

As he bumped into displays and knocked over goods, he drew the ire of one merchant after another. After turning several corners and thinking himself safe, his flight finally came to an end at a forearm thrust into his path. Lying on his back, out of breath, and not much caring if he passed out, he looked up at the man towering over him. His entire body was tense, prepared to strike again if necessary.

"What's your hurry, thief?"

Blissful unconsciousness would have to wait, so shocked was he by the unexpected accusation.

"What—?" Before he could elaborate, BB-8 rolled up fast alongside him, extended a telescoping arm, and transmitted a sizable electric shock. It was powerful enough for Finn to bolt upright.

"Ow! Hey, what!"

"The jacket!" The man barks at him and Finn winces, "you stole it."

"I've had a pretty messed up day, alright? So I'd appreciate it if you stop accusing me—OW!" He glared at the droid, rubbing the pain in his leg away after the second zap. "Stop it!"

Finn looks up at the man— then the agitated droid, Finn's mind raced. Frustrated, and sighing heavily, he knew they needed a response. So, he made the hard decision: to tell the truth. He considered embroidering the news or somehow softening it. With a short stare at the droid, recognizing the orange and white the pilot proudly declared, and then up to the unyielding man.

"His master's dead." By their reaction, it was plain enough that neither the droid nor man had expected quite so blunt a response. Nor one so definitive. The droid beeped mournfully, but the man— the man looked completely lost. His full-bodied flinch forced him a step back, brows pulled together harshly.

"You're lying," he murmured in a rush of breath sucked in.

"His name was Poe Dameron, right?" He focused his attention on BB-8, if only to not watch the grief unfold and force the man into the sand. He brought his elbows on loosely bent knees, staring blankly in the middle space between them.

"He was captured by the First Order. I helped him escape." Finn spoke dispassionately, evenly. It didn't feel enough to condense their frantic flight into words, like a betrayal to the fiery pilot that brought a Star Destroyer to a heel. He had given himself time to think, the heat baking the past into fleeting memories. "I broke him out and we escaped, but the TIE fighter we stole was shot down. Poe didn't make it."

Finn hardly caught the muted mutter, rough and breaking, something about the cockpit. The man still wasn't looking at him but shook his head, biting hard on his lower lip.

"Look, I tried to help. I'm sorry…"

The man huffed, rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. The only difference in depression between an organic and droid is the lack of flexible expression. Saddened, moving slowly, BB-8 rolled into the man's leg, repeatedly bumping into him until one hand came to rest on the spherical head. Finn watched the droid and man lend silent comfort to one another, not wanting to intrude to ask how closely this man had known Poe. He was about to ask when the man looked up and said, "So you were both prisoners on board? You're with the Resistance?"

Taking account of how the man's hand was still fisted at his side and how his dark eyes were burning into him, it was easy enough to know how to reply: this time he lied. Finn nodded vigorously.

"Obviously. Yes." He told him, drawing himself up. Finn dropped to a whisper, earning a surprised bemused look. "I'm with the Resistance, yeah. I'm with the Resistance."

He relaxed a little, "I wasn’t expecting Resistance on Jakku.”

It was difficult to strut in place, but Finn managed, "Well, this is what we look like. Some of us. Others look different."

The man took his offered hand, now standing, taller and lighter than his new counterpart. A study of inverse between them. "Clearly. BB-8 says he's on a secret mission, he has to get back to base."

"Apparently he's carrying a map that leads to Luke Skywalker."

The entertained expression that he seemed to use to mask something more aching dropped. A muscle in Ben’s jaw jumped, his _uncle_ is once again at the center of their storm. He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled sharply and glared at BB-8 who shied away from the look. The droid could have just told him. Something else was happening here, Ben thought as he frowned at Finn, eyes searching for truth in the words he had just spoken.

"What?" he said an octave deeper in partial disbelief, anger smoldering now. Either the map or pilot had sparked the sense of righteous fury that Finn could only gape at. He might have asked if he hadn't been interrupted again, this time by a steady stream of excited beeps.

"What is it?" he looked up, past a concerned Finn. "Over there?"

Trailing his gaze, he was able to make out the hulking forms of the two thugs that had assaulted the man to steal the droid. They were not alone. The sun gleamed off the bright white armor of two stormtroopers. One of the banged-up hooligans was pointing in Finn's direction.

Grabbing the man's hand, Finn started backward into the maze of tents and temporary posts that formed the marketplace.

"What are you doing?" he protested but allowed himself to be pulled along. The droid needed no urging, but the man still shouted over his shoulder, "Come on BB-8!"

A pair of blaster explosions obliterated the spot they had been standing. A third struck a cleaning unit, which began to spew smoke and corrosive fumes. Still holding tight to his hand, Finn darted in and out among the flimsy structures, dodging outraged owners and goods alike. By now the man was struggling against Finn's grip.

"Would you let go?!"

"No, we gotta move! I know how they…" Mindful of what he had told him, Finn backed up and began anew. "I mean, as a Resistance fighter, I'm familiar with stormtrooper procedure. We in the Resistance have to be."

"Yeah," he deadpanned, maybe he wasn't the rebel sympathizer Finn had originally thought.

"Those two would rather identify us from smoking bits," Finn yelled as he ran, nodding back the way they had come. "Saves the trouble of having to ask questions."

"I know how to run without you holding my hand," he barked as he skidded to a stop, dragging Finn with him, pulling him sharply to the left. "No, this way."

Another blast from behind missed them. By now a general panic had seized the denizens of the market. Those who weren't scattered in every direction were doing their best to shield their stock. Their efforts slowed but did not halt the pursuing stormtroopers.

Finn and his companions hunkered down inside a larger tent crammed with machine parts, crates of salvage, and other mechanical detritus. Peeping cautiously through a gap in the scrap pile they had taken cover behind.

"I get why they're shooting at you, I don't see how they recognized me." he muttered. Really, Finn thought for the tenth time since meeting him, who was this guy? Another blast fired, and he knew exactly why they were shooting at them, and he felt terrible about it.

"They saw you with me. You're marked."

His mouth tightened. "Thanks for that."

Finn didn't respond directly, "I'm not the one chasing others around."

The man bobbed his head, Finn had a point.

While staying hidden, Finn tried to scan their surroundings, searching desperately for something useful. As a trained trooper, he felt naked without a gun.

BB-8 quivered slightly. Both antennae were fully extended and inclined eastward. While their sensory equipment was less sensitive than the droid's, it was no less sophisticated.

The men and droid listened closely. BB-8 became increasingly agitated, spun around and raced toward the rear storage area. Finn responded almost as quickly, grabbing the other man's hand again. As before, he protested but maintained his grip.

"Stop taking my hand!"

The explosion ripped up the storage area, its contents, and the ground just as the TIE fighters unleashed their weaponry in a low pass over town.

The concussion threw Ben hard into the ground. He came up fearful and spitting out grit. The planet of Jakku had never ceased to be increasingly dangerous. He found Finn nearby, unconscious. BB-8 beeped its concern. Getting a grip on the familiar leather jacket sent an ache through him but he rolled Finn over. Not the safest thing to do, but not wanting to use the precious time to dig out the emergency bio-injector, Ben shook Finn hard. He blinked at his surroundings before his attention settled back on him. Swallowing, he managed to gasp out, "Are you okay?"

It struck Ben that he wasn't asked that very often. "Yeah, come on."

Ben offered his hand. Finn glanced at it, his dark gaze raising to his face, then gratefully accepting it.

"Follow me," Ben said. He broke out into a run, now the one to guide a disoriented Finn.

Around them, Niima Outpost was in complete disarray. Explosions had torn tents and other buildings apart, scattering merchants, traders, scavengers, maintenance workers, and every other innocent bystander in a panicky search for cover. Ben lead his companions onto a sand-scoured clearing he noticed earlier that served as the town's port. Looking back, he saw the TIE fighters bank and turn. He had no doubt what they were looking for.

"We can't outrun them!"

He pointed to the shiny, red, four-engine craft toward which they were running. "These ships are garbage. We might escape in that."

Finn shook his head. "I'm a gunner. We need a pilot!"

"We've got one," Despite the danger, Ben had started to grin at the quad-jumper. But then he skidded to a stop just as the two TIE fighters roared overhead. Instead of firing at the now stationary targets, their gunners directed bursts of energy at the fugitive’s original direction. The quadjumper came apart in a ball of fire, flinging bits and pieces as the detonation scorched the landing area. Ben didn't notice, his attention on a different ship entirely. If some part of him was doubtful of the Will of the Force before, he was certainly a believer now. Then again, the Falcon had a way of getting Solo’s out of trouble.

“It can’t be…”

"Garbage will have to do!" Finn said, pulling him from his frozen state.

"Oh yes, she’ll do," Ben laughed and jogged after Finn up the ramp, BB-8 trundling after them, "Hey, what are you calling garbage, this is the-"

The returning engines screaming over drowned him out.

Ben hit the wall panel before the others were safely aboard, to his glee it responded. The ramp behind them rose and the lock sealed. Ben raced for the cockpit and threw himself into the pilot's seat, a shiver working up his arms as he activated several controls.

"Gunner's position is down below!"

Turning, Finn headed back for the indicated area. "You’ve flown this thing before?"

"Never from this seat," Ben muttered to himself.

Not caring if the other man responded or not, Finn slipped down and buckled himself into the gunner's seat. To his shock, it responded to his weight by whipping to the left.

Hastily he grabbed hold of the controls.

"I can do this, I can do this." Manipulating the intuitive grip of the weaponry system allowed Finn to quickly take command of the turret's movements. If anything, the track and fire controls were simpler than those he handled in the Special Forces TIE fighter.

Ben rapidly ran through the standard pre-lift sequence, activated the full panoply of relevant instrumentations, and sat back.

"Hey, old girl. Fancy meeting you here."

A low whine rose from the rear of the craft. He reached for the control that would bring all her hurried preparations into fruition. One of three things would occur when he thumbed it, he knew: they would lift off, the ship would blow up, or nothing at all would happen. Not good odds, but he wasn't raised to pay attention to those. Ben was turbulent with emotion, but he was laughing again, a little shaky. He wished Poe was here, in the co-pilot seat.

He punched the control, "I can do this, I can do this—"

At the stern of the old ship, long quiescent engines flared to brilliant life. Fully powered up now, it soared into the bright blue of the sky of Jakku— but not very efficiently.

Shedding tarps as it rose, it spun and careened wildly, nearly crashing back to the ground. Wrestling with the controls that were familiar in memory but not so much in the present tense, Ben managed to level off just in time to pull the ship through the town's entry archway: Niima Outpost's sole example of architectural pride.

The ship turned around and accelerated. Ben relished the familiar way he was forced further into his seat. The pair of TIE fighters that had been shooting up the town immediately gave chase.

Ben headed skyward but Finn yelled at him, "Stay low! It confuses their tracking."

"I'm going low," He shouts as a blast rocks the frame of the ship.

"Shields!" Finn reminded him.

"The controls are on the other side of the console," He shoots back. "Not so easy without a copilot!"

Below, Finn continued to struggle with the highly responsive, wildly spinning turret. "Trying sitting in this thing."

Ben would give him that, though his mother wasn't supposed to know about those trips.

Realizing it was impossible to reach the necessary instrumentation even with his long arms, Ben momentarily let go of the controls. He would have to do this manually, he knew. Put any ship on autopilot and the vectoring would be sensed by the pursuer, who could then lock-on and blow them out of the sky. In contrast, there was just enough rocking in their flight path as he leaned to the right to confuse any electronic predictors. His stretching caused the ship to can't sharply as he tried to activate the shield instrumentation on the copilot's side while maintaining some semblance of control.

"BB-8, hold on." His warning came too late for the droid. Beeping madly, he rolled toward the ceiling as the ship spun.

Fingers straining, he just managed to reach the controls and flicked them to life. In the process, he brushed away several clumps of excessively long, rough yellow-brown hairs that had been caught. Light and more than relieved, he straightened in the pilot's seat and resumed full command, stabilizing the vessel.

Diving for the surface, he pulled up at the last second and sent them screaming across the ground, clipping the crest of a dune. Trying to match the maneuver while pursuing at high speed, both TIE fighters shot past, unable to slow down on time. Had their shields not been up the passing blasts would have brought them down. The old girl was still profoundly robust, but she has always been tougher than she looks.

Ben banked so hard that he ripped a line in the sand as he turns, narrowly missing a sandstone monolith. Within the ship’s cylindrical corridor, the droid was rolling across the walls, the ceiling, everywhere except where it wanted to be. Capable of comprehending the causes of nausea, the droid was fortunate it was not a condition his kind were subject to, but his internal gyros were being forced to work overtime.

Another detonation rocked the ship. Finn's mouth tightened as he continued to fire back. The fighters came on, almost disdainful of their quarry's defensive efforts.

"We need cover!" He yelled as he kept firing. "Quick!"

"We're about to get some!" Then to himself, "I hope."

Across the desiccated desert, Ben was half-familiar with. He knew what he had to do. Centering himself, he knew— he knew this was a moment where he had to trust the Force to guide him.

"Nice shot!" Ben's praise reached down from the cockpit as one of the trailing fighters caught Finn's blast, causing it to trail wreckage across the unforgiving sand. The damaged ship slammed into one of the mountains of industrial waste, coming apart.

"I'm getting pretty good at this!"

"'Course you are, buddy!"

Ben secretly hoped he didn’t end up killing this man as he took a deep breath and steered toward the enormous field of derelict spacecraft. Trailed by the surviving fighter, the ship slalomed through the colossal peaks of debris. The next blast erupted close enough to send the turret spinning. When it finally stabilized, its rattled occupant was horrified to find that it had been jammed facing forward. He couldn't rotate it any other direction. At the same time, alarms began to sound throughout the ship, indicating that more than just the gunner's position had sustained damage.

"Guns are stuck in forward position!" He yelled upward. "I can't move, you have to lose them!"

Modifications aside, Ben knew one of the fighter's bursts were going to overwhelm them soon. The vessel was a freighter, not a warship.

Ahead laid the bulk of a downed Super Star Destroyer. Ben's determination weighed on his features, making his chin dip at the inconceivable large metal mass. Pulling at the controls, he drove the ship downward— and into the gaping breach that was the center of the ruined engine thruster. Unwilling to give ground, their pursuer did not stray from its target.

As he sat gawking out the turret's transparent canopy, a disbelieving Finn gauged the proximity of the metal walls that were racing on either side of them.

"Are we really doing this?"

Sparks continued to flare from their ship's sides as Ben negotiated one narrowing passage after another in a series of moves he knew would impress and horrify Poe. Then he would wrestle the controls from Ben and see if he could do it faster.

Ben gritted his teeth, cast thoughts and self aside— there was a turn coming, and he had to be ready for it. The path he sensed and chased veering sharply somewhere ahead.

"Get ready!"

"Okay!" Came Finn's quick response, "For what?"

Uninterrupted light appeared at the far end of the service corridor. The unrelenting fighter continued to blast into them. Ben didn’t bother to check readouts if the ship was damaged, all that mattered was ahead. Then they were flying out into bright sunlight. The instant the ship emerged from the destroyer, he cut power, his stomach soaring into his throat as the ship spun completely around.

Finn was used to the wild swings of the cosmos. As they spun in a tight aerial twist, he kept his wits and fired once.

The TIE fighter missed, he did not.

Ben turned the ship hard away from the hulk of the Super Star Destroyer as the remaining fighter burst into flame, lost speed and altitude, and crashed into the surface in their wake. Working the controls, a jubilant Ben sent the Millennium Falcon into the clouds.

* * *

The great sweep of the external observation portal on the Finalizer allowed anyone standing before it an uninterrupted view of the vastness of space. Suns and nebulae, mysteries and conundrums, all were laid out before her. Equal parts awe-inspiring and vexing.

Kira Ren regarded it in silence. She had been trained in contemplation, was skilled at deliberation, could remain in meditation just so for hours at a time.

But she was losing her patience. She feared Snoke would be disappointed in her lapse of character. This would end in success or another lesson. Her skin prickled with dry static, her clenched hands tightened. Leather creaked against her calloused palms. Kira would not fail him again.

Approaching from behind, all Lieutenant Mitaka could see was a tall, caped figure hardly silhouetted against the spray of stars, merely another void. He did not look forward to having to make the report. It was his responsibility and he had no choice. Nor was it the first time he had been compelled to deliver bad news to a superior officer. She was different. Not precisely a superior officer but something else, someone above their own agendas and far more dangerous than the sharp tongues he served. Right now, Mitaka would rather have been anywhere else in the civilized galaxy than alone in a room with Kira Ren.

The caped figure did not turn, she did not have to. Mitaka knew she was aware of his arrival, tracking him with something other than eyes.

"Something to report, Lieutenant?" Her voice made him jump even when he was expecting it. "Or have you come to marvel at the view?"

Standing at attention, he presented his brief report.

"Sir. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to acquire the BB-8 droid from Jakku."

Already uneasy, Mitaka swallowed at her extended silence. He braced himself for when Ren turned. He has always found it unsettling to have to gaze at the empty, metal mask under the shade of her cowl.

"It escaped capture aboard a stolen Corellian YT model freighter."

Atypically, a touch of amusement and uncertainty colored Ren's voice. "The droid… stole a freighter."

"Not exactly, sir. It had help." Mitaka was starting to sweat as he always did this close to her, something kinetic and agitated brushing against him. Ren says nothing, which says everything for her. Deftly able to use her silence as a weapon of a different kind. "We have no confirmation, but we believe FN-2187 may have helped in the escape--"

He broke off as Ren reached for the lightsaber at her belt, activated the weapon, and raised the intense red band. It hissed and sparked in the dim space.

Expecting a swift judgment, Mitaka closed his eyes. At the awful sound of whining metal, he dared open them once more. Ren slashed at the console nearby, at the walls, at the deck, rending and ripping. Savage, uneven lines of bleeding metal raked across the very fabric of the ship. Her rage was a terrible, visceral thing to behold. Mitaka strove to remain perfectly still, to control his breathing, to become as invisible as possible lest she turned to hunt organic prey as the recipient of her jagged fury. Whether by chance or design, Ren spared him.

Shutting off the lightsaber, the woman turned to the wretched bearer of bad news. She spoke calmly, "Anything else?"

At least the worst of the report had been delivered. And he was still alive. He allowed himself to relax a little.

"The two were accompanied by a man."

Reaching out, a black-gloved hand clutched the startled lieutenant and pulled him violently forward. That metallic visage now close, closer than Mitaka had ever been to it. The smell of ozone clung to her even onboard. The air surrounding her was as heavy as the grip on his neck, a hum thick in his ears. As the officer struggled to breathe in that remorseless grasp, Kira Ren's voice took a new growling timber, more menacing than he had ever heard

"What--man?”


	4. Millennium Falcon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snoke demurred. "It is far more than that. It is where you are from. What you are made for. The perfect vessel of the dark side— and the light. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work. I have— you." He paused, reminiscing. “When I found you, you were nothing. I have given you purpose, drive. Do I ask too much of you?”
> 
> It was a rhetorical question, one that he did not give her time to answer though her wince spoke volumes.
> 
> "Kira Ren, I watched the Galactic Empire rise, and the fall. The gullible prattle on about the triumph of truth and justice, of individualism and free will. As if such things were solid and real instead of simple subjective judgments. The historians have it all wrong. It was neither poor strategy nor arrogance that brought down the Empire. You know too well what did."
> 
> Ren nodded once. "Sentiment, Supreme Leader."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ja;slkdfj i almost didn't get this update posted on time but here we go!!! at least jess is on-time w her editing and a general angel as always

Ben patted the control panel, entrusting the ship's navigation to the tri-droid mainframe still bickering at the heart of the Millennium Falcon. He considered slipping from the cockpit but found himself sinking deeper into the pilot seat.

BB-8, who after the acrobatic aerial contortions of the past few minutes was now able to steady itself, bumped into the back of his chair. Ben reached around and rubbed the top dome, nodding at the mournful beeps.

"You okay?" he asked the droid quietly. Several short, curt beeps avowed that it was, while also communicating that the experience they had just gone through had been less than pleasurable.

Finn stumbled into the cockpit, trying to regulate his breathing while coming down from an adrenaline high. He gave Ben a wide, disarming grin and gestured to the empty copilot seat.

Looking at it made Ben's chest tighten, hesitating for a moment. Part of him didn't want this stranger in what was his seat and what should have been Poe's. Thinking of Poe, left behind in the sun-blasted surface of Jakku didn't just hurt. It ached and gnawed at every jagged piece ripped from him.

The Force lurched through him, filled that terrible void and drew him back. Ben nodded at the other man, looking away as he settled next to him. Poe had trusted him, after all.

"That was some piloting!"

"Thanks." Ben gave him a half-heart shrug. "I've been flying anything I could sneak into since I could walk." It was his turn to smile, albeit a little forced, but Finn's exultance was infectious,

"Speaking of which, that was some shooting. I was worried you wouldn't have the time to react."

"You could have told me what you had in mind. Might've saved me a heart palpitation or two."  
Ben shook his head. "No time. I had to pull the turn almost as soon as I thought of it. I just had to rely on you."

"You set me up for it!"

"You hit them dead on, in one blast."

Finn's smile gave way to a touch of self-satisfaction. "It was a pretty good shot."

Ben clapped him on the shoulder, giving him a small shake. "It was perfect."

BB-8 chose to interrupt the growing sense of affinity between them with a series of insistent beeps.

"You're okay." Ben pauses, looking back at Finn, wondering just how much trust Poe had put into him. "He's with the Resistance, remember? He's going to get you home. We both will."

He tacked on the end just to keep the droids urgent squawking to a minimum. Ben looked up from the droid, "I don't know your name."

Startled, Finn must have realized he was equally ignorant. "FN— Finn. What's yours?"

"I'm Ben." He smiles at Finn again, easier this time.

"Ben—"

He might have said something more, but it was the ship itself that interrupted. Down the corridor, inside the lounge, a section of decking broke loose, shot upward, and banked off the ceiling before coming to rest on the floor with a loud clank. Hissing vapor was starting to fill the room, threatening to overwhelm the ability of the atmospheric scrubbers to cleanse it.

Ben didn't hesitate. Ignoring the emission spewing from beneath the deck, he raced over to peer down past the ragged edge of the opening. He suspected the venting gas had to be nontoxic or diluted; otherwise, they would have been sprawled out on the floor by now, unconscious or dying. He could be wrong; most likely he was. Ben huffed.

Sitting down, he slid both legs into the opening and jumped down.

Finn struggled to peer down into the depths where Ben had jumped down. The constant rasp of escaping vapor made it difficult to hear or see anything. He badly wanted to shut off the blaring emergency alarm but didn't dare move away while Ben was still below and out of sight. Even he could tell that this particular vessel had undergone a considerable number of modifications; he didn't expect Ben to know all of them. Make the wrong adjustment and they could blow up the ship. Or the ship, responding on its own to unknown preprogramming, could blow them up.

A head of dark hair curled to a more dramatic degree popped up, surrounded by steam. Perspiration streamed down Ben's temple, sunburn and flush meshing together. "It's the motivator. Grab me a Harris wrench." He pointed behind Finn. "Check in there."

Turning, he unlatched a storage container Ben had directed him toward and began rummaging through the contents. As a stormtrooper, he was trained to deal with certain emergencies.

These included but were not limited to troubles of a mechanical nature, such as how to do basic repairs on a speeder and other ground transport vehicles. He had a vague notion of what he was looking for.

"How bad is it?" he yelled back at Ben as he continued to sort through the container's jumble of tools and wires, silently cursing the unknown owner of the ship. Whoever it was, he has no genius at organization. The tools and replacement components filled the box in the most haphazard manner possible.

"If we want to live," Ben's voice echoed from below, "not good."

The ship gave a nasty jolt, reminding Finn of their rapidly degrading situation. "They're hunting us now, we gotta get out of this system!"

Ben reemerges, face tight but something like mischief on the curve of his mouth. He glances at the nearby droid before focusing back on Finn with narrowed eyes, "BB-8 said the location of the Resistance base is 'need to know'— if I'm taking you there, I need to know."

He disappeared below, once more leaving Finn and the droid alone in the shuddering, alarm-filled lounge. Busy as he was at attempting to make the necessary repairs, Finn felt he could try to stall him. But that would only postpone the inevitable reckoning. Or he could try to ignore the query. Same inescapable result. Ben is a big guy. He could lie, invent something— anything. Blurt out the name of any system, any realistic destination. A quick sideways look showed that the droid was watching him. That wouldn't work, either, since if nothing else BB-8 would contradict him. The only reply that would suffice was the true one, and he didn't have it. He edged over to the droid.

"You gotta tell us where the base is." The droid beeps and backs away affronted. "I don't speak that. Alright, between us, I'm not with the Resistance, okay? I'm just trying to get away from the First Order— but you tell us where your base is, I'll get you there first— okay?" BB-8 cocks his head as if deliberating, Finn felt no shame in pleading. "Droid, please."

He held it's one lens stare until a weary Ben appeared again.

"Pilex driver, hurry." As Finn returned to the storage unit and began searching anew, Ben took the moment to query him once more. "So, where's your base?"

While pushing through the pile of tools and odds and ends, he murmured tersely to the watching droid. "Go on BB-8. You tell him."

Nothing from the droid. Not a sound, not a hum. Finn was on the verge of despair when the spherical mechanical finally uttered a short sequence of beeps. Ben studied Finn’s face with a cutting precision, expression darkened during the string of binary.

"The Ileenium system?" he muttered, almost to himself, almost to gauge Finn’s reaction. 

Locating the requisite tool, a relieved Finn passed it to him. "Yeah, the Ileenium system." Where the hell was the Ileenium system? "That's the one— get us there as fast as you can."

As soon as Ben was out of sight again, the grateful Finn gave BB-8 a thumbs up. The droid responded by shooting out a welding torch in imitation of the human's gesture.

Ben wasn't gone long, nor was his attitude any more relaxed when he reappeared. His hair was impossibly taller. "I'll drop you two off at Ponemah Terminal. I need the bonding tape, hurry!"

For the third time, Finn found himself plowing through the disorganized container. "What about you?"

He shook his head, now shiny ringlets shifting. Vapor continued to geyser upward and around, though not as much as before, Finn noted.

"I have to get back to Jakku."

Finn gapes at him, floundering for a minute. "Back to Jak-- Why does everyone always wanna go back to Jakku?"

Picking up what looked like a sealer, he turned to toss it to him.

"No, that one." Ben pointed, but his stance was none too steady and his large hand kept waving around. Doing his best to follow Ben's directions, Finn hefted another instrument. "No, the one I'm pointing to."

Finn gave him a brief incredulous look, exasperation nearly overcame his fear.

"That one! If we don't patch it up, the propulsion tank with overflow and flood the ship with poisonous gas."

Finn tried another device.

"No."

Another.

"No— that one, Finn, to your left. No!"

Sidling up alongside Finn, BB-8 used his head to indicate the appropriate sealer. Hopeful, Finn picked it up. "This?"

By now he was surprised when instead of bawling "No!" again, he replied with an emphatic, "Yes!"

Finn tossed it to him, watched as he caught it easily and once more disappeared below. Leaving the tool container, he returned to the opening in the deck and called down to Ben. "Hey. Ben. You're a pilot— you can fly anywhere. Why go back? You got a family? You got a boyfriend, a cute boyfriend?"

As the flow of vapor finally slowed and then ceased, so did the interminable alarm. Ben's reappearance coincided with the return of comparative silence within the lounge. He broke it immediately.

"I have to go back for some—," Ben muttered so quietly that Finn couldn't tell if he had said something or someone.

The sudden dimming of lights put a halt to any incipient arguments. They flickered but did not go out. All three of them of the lounge's occupants regarded their newly altered environment. BB-8 beeped nervously.

"That can't be good," Finn murmured.

"No, it can't be," Ben agreed as he climbed out of the opening. Together, they headed back toward the cockpit.

Ben settled back into the pilot's seat, Finn's hand behind his head as they both focused on the dead console. One did not have to be trained as a pilot to infer that unresponsive controls did not bode well for future voyaging.

Without much hope, Ben tried several switches and toggles before sitting back, defeated.

"Someone's locked onto us— all controls are overridden."

The scanner he tried tapping told them nothing, leaving Ben shrugging helplessly. Nothing was visible through the front port; Finn stood in his seat and reached for the overhead observation dome. He placed a foot in Ben's lap and hoisted himself with a hand on his broad shoulder.

"Get off. Get off— see anything?" Ben had started to push him off but steadied Finn's leg the moment it felt like he was going to lose his balance.

"Oh no." There was no need for elaboration. He would see for himself all too soon. Oddly enough, the sight allowed Finn to relax finally. There is no point in running anymore once you're caught.

The other ship was gigantic, an enormous bulky freighter. The cargo bay door was open, and against the hangar looming above, their stolen vessel appeared no bigger than an escape capsule.

Its instrumentation frozen, its engines dead, and its weapons systems offline, the paralyzed ship was drawn inexorably upward into the cavernous opening.

Finn slumped back into the seat next to Ben's, his gaze fixed as he spoke. "It's the First Order."

Behind them, BB-8 beeped querulously. Having nothing encouraging to say, Finn did not reply.

They weren't going to the Ileenium system, he knew. Not now. The likelihood of them even returning to Jakku was infinitesimal. Their fates would be decided on board the ship that was presently pulling them in.

In spite of what he had done, in spite of his own personal rebellion nearly succeeding, it had all come to nothing. Poe Dameron was dead. Soon he, and this poor man would join the Resistance pilot. Whatever map or other information BB-8 held would be forcibly extracted from the little droid, after which his memory would be wiped, his AI circuits removed, and the remainder probably recycled as scrap. Finn grunted softly. That was more than he or Ben could hope for. All he could do for him now was apologize for having inveigled him into a mess that was a consequence of his own making. He might relay the truth to the individuals presiding over his disposition. Plead on Ben's behalf. But as an ex-First Order stormtrooper he knew that his words, however eloquent, would buy them only as much time as it took for him to speak them. He was bitter and resigned.

Finn also knew that if given the chance he would have done the same thing over again. The only thing that separated him from his comrades, the only thing that defined him as an individual, was his unshakeable sense of what was right. That much, at least, he could take with him.

"What do we do?” Ben was saying beside him. He gripped his strength to keep fighting as tightly as Finn held on to his morality. "There must be something."

Finn's mind races through every downfall and ill thought plan— then: "You said poison gas—"

Ben eyed him uncertainly. "Yeah, but I fixed that."

His tone was deliberate and met Ben’s stare unflinchingly. "Can you unfix it?"

It took Ben a moment to realize what he was driving at. When understanding came, his expression brightened, a wide, devious smile spreading as he rose from the cockpit. Together, they headed back to the lounge, BB-8 trailing close behind.

The emergency masks they removed from their storage stations were designed to protect against loss of atmosphere. They most emphatically were not intended to substitute for the environment suits that were employed during extravehicular excursions. But for the plan Finn had in mind, they should do just fine. Working together, they succeeded in wrestling the droid down into the surface area. When all three had safely managed the short descent, Ben pulled at the blown section of decking, his shoulders straining to yank the metal back over their heads.

They worked hard to undo the results of the earlier repair.

"You think this'll work on stormtroopers?" Ben wondered as he manipulated the tools he had used earlier and left behind.

"Standard issue helmets are designed to filter out smoke, not toxins."

Ben gave him a guarded look over his shoulder, one that Finn couldn't decrypt before he turned again.

Abruptly, the ship's internal illumination returned at full strength. Even concealed within the service corridor, they could hear the muted sound of the ship's ramp lowering.

"Hurry," Finn whispered.

"I put this seal in place to keep us alive," he hissed back as his hands flew, "I made it to last. Don't expect me to take it apart in a couple of minutes! Does this look like I'm taking my—"

"Chewie, we're home." Finn heard a man say. There was a drawn-out silence that made him whip back toward a frozen Ben, his hands landing limp at his sides.

"No shit," he mumbled to himself and then he did the unthinkable, stretching and pushing the metal grate away from them. Horror melted to relief when Finn gazed up at… most definitely not a stormtrooper.

"Dad?" Ben asked and for a moment Finn though he was asking the giant hairy thing looming over them, even taller than Ben himself. Then he saw the human at his side. There was nothing to interfere with his soft expression. It filled a face scarred with know-how, aged by experience, and world-weary— characteristic of someone who had set foot on dozens of worlds. His eyes were hazel, his gray hair tousled, and he wore the look of a man who had seen too much, too soon, and had been forced to deal with idiots all too often.

"Ben?"

A battery of sounds issued from between thick lips, something halfway between a moan and a question. Which Ben answered with, "Yeah, yeah, it's me. I know, I'm taller."

Finn gaped at him. "Wait— you can understand that thing?"

Beating the older man to a response, Ben tells him with a half-smile, "and 'that thing' can understand you, so watch it."

"Get out of there, will you!" His attention was on Ben, with a slanted smile. There was a hint of something playful in his demeanor as he reached out with a hand. Ben lumbered out and into a tight embrace, their chins resting on each other's shoulders.

As Finn emerged from the service corridor, Finn found himself looking up at the man's companion. And up, and up as he leaned over Ben to wrap him in long, furry arms. He watched as Ben answered a series of growls with an affectionate smile, “I missed you too, Uncle Chewie.”

Impatiently, the man asked, holding Ben by his shoulders. "Where'd you get her?"

"Niima Outpost."

Dropping his jaw, he stared back at Ben. "Jakku? That junkyard?”

"Thank you!" Finn said. "Junkyard." His original opinion confirmed and validated, Ben rolled his eyes at the I-told-you-so look.

The man addressed his towering cohort. "Told you we should've double-checked the Western Reaches!" He continued to Ben, "Who had it? Ducain?"

Ben shook his head, curly hair laying flatter now, "We stole it from a salvage dealer named Unkar Plutt."

Brows narrowed as the weathered visage wrinkled even more, "From who?"

In addition to anger, the large creature’s voice was filled with righteous indignation. To Finn, it sounded a little forced. His hurried speculation of the freighter's captain interrupted when the man said, "It doesn't matter, you tell him Ben and Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good!"

Whirling, Han holstered his unused blaster and headed for the cockpit, lofty associate at his side. Finn caught up to the trio in the corridor, wanting desperately to get past the hairy bipedal mountain that was blocking his path. Said mountain ignored Finn's feeble efforts to push his way past.

Having managed to sidle past on the other side, Finn could hardly contain his incredulity. "This is the Millennium Falcon?"

He couldn't keep himself from staring at the pilot. For a living legend, his appearance was more than a little disheveled.

"You're Han Solo?" He tried again, looking askance.

This time instead of a smile, a grin: part amused, part knowing, and maybe a little nostalgic. "I used to be."

Finn found himself dumbstruck. "The Rebellion general?"

"No," Ben broke in with a secret smile shared between them, "the smuggler."

It hit Finn just then— Ben had referred to him as his father.

"That makes you— Ben Solo. The pilot of Red One."

He had a very sudden urge to sit down. Finn had lied to him, sure, thinking he was some vagrant on Jakku, not the Red Squadron Leader, one of the best pilots in the Resistance, a title shared with—

Poe Dameron.

Finn knew why Ben Solo was on Jakku; it hadn't been luck that brought them together. He had been searching for his friend, determined to bring him back. Why he still meant to return, even though Finn had told him, there was still that stubborn streak holding onto the smallest hope. The flicker of light that forced the darkness of reality back.

Ben must have seen every thought and emotion that flashed over his face, he looked downward, no longer meeting Finn's eyes.

For a distraction, to keep that look on Ben's face from darkening further, Finn blurted out, "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs."

"Twelve." Both Ben and Han immediately corrected. The father looked at the son who grinned at his scoff, "Fourteen. Where did you find this kid?"

"He found me," Ben said, gesturing between them. "Finn, Han. Dad, Finn."

Ben watched the same expression Han had upon seeing his son once again settle onto his features when placing a hand on the pilot seat. When the older man scanned the controls. A wave of something, a certain rightness, washed over the Millennium Falcon's rightful owner, making Han stand up straighter. Knowing his father, it wasn't nostalgia. That wasn't a part of his makeup. Possibly remembrance of old friendships, or adventures long past, or exotic destinations once visited. Most likely the financial opportunities missed. His hand grazed a pair of golden dice as he moved forward, Han let his hands rest on the main console as his eyes continued to rove from instrument to monitor to—

"Hey! Some moof-milker installed a compressor on the ignition line."

Ben glanced around him at the couple of contacts and the readouts that were anything but pleasing.

"Puts too much stress on the hyperdrive flow," They say at the same time. For an instant Han looked puzzled as if he had forgotten that Ben had once accompanied him on his adventures, before he had started piloting with the Resistance. Maybe time had stolen too much between them, Ben thought, a little desolate before his father clapped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him into another embrace.

More than reluctant and far too comforted, Ben melted into the gesture. He jerked back, grasped his father's upper arms. "Dad, we need your help."

"My help…"

He looked more than dubious, now having to look up at his son.

Ben indicated to BB-8, "This droid is carrying a map to Luke. Poe died getting it."

The strangest look came over the Falcon's owner. In an instant and in response to his son's distressed request, all the hardness seemed to drain out of him. For a moment he was no longer on the ship. He wasn't even in Jakku's system, but somewhere else in his own mind.

Unable to stand the lack of response, Finn spoke up.

"You are the Han Solo who fought with the Rebellion. You knew him."

"Yeah, I knew him." The flinty stare had gone hazy, the strong voice soft. "I knew Luke. And Poe… I’m sorry, son."

Ben nodded, unable to meet his father’s eyes as he scuffed his boot across the faded floor.

A distinct metallic thunk reached them inside the Falcon. Snapping back to the present, Han was all business again as he scowled in the direction of the ship's loading ramp.

"Don't tell me a rathtar’s gotten loose—"

"Dad, tell me you're not hauling rathtars." Ben scrubbed a hand over his face, pushing his wayward hair back.

"I'm hauling rathtars." Han deadpanned without breaking stride, mouth pursed as if to hold back a grin.

"Dad!"

They stopped in front of a console in the loading bay, a host of images revealed both the interior and exterior of the hulking freighter. One of the latter revealed the approach of nonmilitary transport. The sleek craft nudged its way along the hull, like a parasite hunting for an easy way into a potential host.

"Dad." He said firmer, his expression not pleased.

"You recognize them," Finn said. It was not a question. "From the look on both of your faces, I can tell that you wished you hadn't."

"You really need my help?" Han turned to his son as the transport docked on another section of the ship. Ben nodded, clueless on how his father's decision would swing. Bala-Tik and his group of misfits in the Guavian Death Gang were being followed closely by who Ben thought was Kanjiklub. They weren't fighting amongst themselves, which meant they put their forces on a larger target. He gave his father another pleading and disbelieving look.

"Push that button." Han pointed to one in front of Finn. Quickly, he followed the order.

The lights flickered. Raucous laughter of the Kanji and Guavian alike faded as they regarded the now sporadic illumination with uncertainty. Distant components cycling on and off filled the corridor with clicking and gnashing like the cries of a thousand mechanical insects. Abruptly, the lights flared back to life brighter than ever. Han was grinning like a fiend between the two younger men, continued doing so as a guttural roar reverberated off of every panel.

"We better get going." He said casually and hauled ass for the ramp of the Falcon when chaos flooded the loading bay with shouts of two different gangs converging on them. Ben shared a look of confusion with Finn before they both broke after him. The bellowing that told Ben to run faster came closer, with it blaster fire that he ducked and pushed Finn's head down as they got closer to their ship. One shot grazed Chewbacca trying to shield them both, snarling at the gang members.

"Ben shut the hatch, you— Finn, take care of Chewie."

"How do I do that?" Finn called after the pilot. To no avail. Han didn't answer.

Chewbacca, on the other hand, groaned and chuffed suggestions. Though he looked as to understand none of them, a willing Finn nonetheless nodded amenably.

"That's right… for sure… yeah, I'll do that… no problem." He winced under the weight of Wookiee as he stumbled; Finn had to employ every ounce of strength to keep them upright.

"It's just his arm!" Ben barked as he passed the medbay, noting how Chewbacca righted himself a little sheepishly. He had been under the weight of the same trick more than once.

In the cockpit, Han was hitting one control after another, bringing the Falcon back online. With each green telltale that lit up, a little of his own life seemed to, too. Ben threw himself into the copilot’s seat, more familiar with this side of the console than the other. He stopped when he noticed Han had paused, a familiar half-smile on his face.

Their hands began to fly over the controls. Han yelled, not unkindly but excited, "Fuel pump's primed. Watch the thrust from your end: We're gonna jump to lightspeed."

"From inside the hangar? Is that even possible?"

It was a stupid question; anything was possible for Han Solo, a belief that carried over from childhood. Han was wholly one with the Falcon now, focused intently on the instrumentation. "I never answer that question until after I've done it."

Further discussion regarding the viability of making the jump from a stationary position to post-lightspeed was interrupted by something enormous, ravenous, and bilious landing on top of the ship. Heavy thumping penetrated the cockpit. Both men jumped at the appearance of a giant radial mouth that all but covered the forward port. The tooth-filled maw belonged to a rathtar, which, perceiving the presence of a living non-rathtar inside the craft, was chewing its damnedest to get to them. Designed to protect against high-velocity meteoric impacts, the port suffered no immediate damage. Rathtars are notably persistent, however, and frustration only led them to redouble their efforts. Like the rest of them, their mouthparts were exceptionally robust. Design or not, Han had no intention of waiting around long enough to see whether the material of which the port was composed was tougher than rathtar dentition.

"This is not how I thought this day would go," Han muttered, a sentiment Ben could silently agree with. "Shields up and angle them."

As far as Han could tell, everything was in readiness. There was nothing more to do but try it. He yelled in the direction of the medbay. "Hang on back there! We're leaving-- in a hurry!"

"No problem!" Finn called back.

"Come on, baby," Han was murmuring, "don't let me down."

He pulled on the main hyperdrive control and—

Nothing.

"What?"

Reaching across his side of the console, Ben calmly activated a control Han had not touched and spoke matter-of-factly. "Compressor."

Han glared at his son purely for being a smart ass. As he pulled slowly back on the drive control for the second time, he smiled at him.

An overpowering thunder filled the cargo hangar as the Falcon's engines came to life. A respectable quantity of metal, plasticene, and ceramic alloy, and parts of Guavian Death Gang members vanished in the energetic backwash of the Falcon's swift departure. As for the rathtar, it fell apart as the Falcon jumped through it, leaving tell-tale smears behind.

Bala-Tik watched the destruction, seething as he made the call, "Inform the First Order that Han Solo has the droid they want. And it's aboard the Millennium Falcon."

* * *

The fleet of Star Destroyers stood off the white world. Spectacular and isolated, with a mean surface temperature varying from merely cold to permanently arctic, the planet had been altered: its mountains tunneled into, its glaciers hacked, and its valleys modified until it no longer resembled its original naturally eroded form. Those who had remade it had renamed it.

Starkiller Base.

Hollowed out of one snow-covered mountain was the central control facility. At its heart was a great audience chamber that held hundreds of workstations and their attendant seats. At present, it was occupied by only three figures. One was Kira Ren, slumped against the polished black floors. The second was General Hux, who wore his particular mask internally.

Seated on the raised platform that was the focus of the chamber was the blue-tinted holo of Supreme Leader Snoke. Tall and gaunt, he was humanoid but not human. The hood of the golden robe he wore was down, leaving visible a stone-gray face so aged it verged on translucence. Poorly reconstructed, the broken nose added to the asymmetry of the damaged visage. So did the position of the left eye, which was situated lower than the right. Beneath wispy grey eyebrows, they were startling cobalt blue. Long since healed over, old cuts and wounds marred the chin and forehead, the latter scar being particularly noteworthy.

Seated in shadow, the tall, slender form loomed over the other two figures. Other than the face, only long, spindly fingers showed from beneath the metallic robe.

"I have been told the droid will soon be delivered to the Resistance. The droid I ordered you, Kira Ren, to recover and you failed to do so." Snoke declaimed, his voice deep, soothing, and very much of someone in control. "The map will lead them to the last Jedi. If Skywalker returns, the new Jedi will rise."

Snoke's guidance smelled like ozone and scars her skin in jagged streaks. Static hummed over Kira's skin, sparking in her marrow. Worst of all is Han Solo's voice was in her ear again, telling her to rise.

_—get up, kid—_

She ignores the third voice claiming space in her mind. Pain is instructive, she reminds herself and struggled to stand. Leather creaks as her fists are planted against the floor.

Hux dipped his head as he ignored her to step toward the dais, his chin lowered, and voice tinted blithely as her ragged breathing echoed in the empty room. The words came lazy and late, "Supreme Leader, I take full responsibility for the--"

Snoke cut off his hollow words. "General! Our strategy must change."

Aware that he had been spared the same punishment as Ren, now standing impassive, neither commenting nor visibly betraying her thoughts.

"The weapon. It is ready. I believe the time has come to use it. We shall destroy the government that supports the Resistance, the Republic. Without their friends to protect them, the Resistance will be vulnerable, and we will stop them before they reach Skywalker."

Kira's cape ruffled around her feet with her flinch; her hand clenched at her side to keep her from speaking out against his orders.

He considered, then with satisfaction. "Go. Oversee preparations."

"Yes, Supreme Leader." Bowing stiffly, Hux turned and exited the chamber. He took long strides, walking briskly, clearly pleased with himself.

Snoke and Ren watched the general go.

When next Snoke spoke, there was an intimacy in his voice, a familiarity that stood in sharp contrast to the commanding tone he used with Hux. Kira raised her chin.

"I have never had a student with such promise— before you."

Ren straightened. "It is your teaching that makes me strong, Supreme Leader."

Snoke demurred. "It is far more than that. It is where you are from. What you are made for. The perfect vessel of the dark side— and the light. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work. I have— you." He paused, reminiscing. “When I found you, you were nothing. I have given you purpose, drive. Do I ask too much of you?”

It was a rhetorical question, one that he did not give her time to answer though her wince spoke volumes.

"Kira Ren, I watched the Galactic Empire rise, and the fall. The gullible prattle on about the triumph of truth and justice, of individualism and free will. As if such things were solid and real instead of simple subjective judgments. The historians have it all wrong. It was neither poor strategy nor arrogance that brought down the Empire. You know too well what did."

Ren nodded once. "Sentiment, Supreme Leader."

"Yes. Such a simple thing. Such a foolish error of judgment. A momentary lapse in an otherwise exemplary life. Had Lord Vader not succumbed to emotion at the crucial moment— had the father killed the son— the Empire would have prevailed. And there would be no threat of Skywalker's return today."

"I am immune to the light," Kira assured him confidently. "I always have been. Already, I am stronger than Darth Vader, with the grace of your training. I would not be seduced."

"Your self-belief is commendable, Kira Ren, but do not let it blind you. No one knows the limits of their own power until it has been tested utmost, as yours has not been. That day may yet to come. There has been an awakening in the Force. Have you felt it?"

Ren nodded, the force murmured around her, an intimate whisper of a different kind, a different presence altogether. "Yes, Supreme Leader."

"The elements align, Kira Ren. You alone are caught in the winds of the storm. Your bond is not just to Vader through reflection, two children left to die in the sand, but to Skywalker himself as your—"

"There is no need for concern." Despite the Supreme Leader's cautioning, Ren's assurance remained unbounded. "Together we will destroy the Resistance— and the last Jedi."

“Yes, my young Jedi Killer,” He crooned, the title a mockery made her lip twitch and forced her to remember that night. An act that stemmed from self-preservation rather than the premeditation he taught her. A reminder of her failure to discard that rough-hewn instinct that grounded her to her past, and inefficiency to embody the dark to her fullest capacity. He keeps her only for the raw power that manifested at a far earlier age than his other prospective apprentice. A spike in the force that made him shift his attention to an untamed notion never seen before that continued to grow. The only aspect of her that had yet to rein completely, despite his efforts. "There's something more. The droid you failed to bring to me is aboard the Millennium Falcon. In the hands of Han Solo."

Ren reacts with subtle, but real, surprise. She considered her reply carefully, then with steely resolve. "They mean nothing to me. My time at the Jedi temple has never dampened my allegiance to you, Supreme Leader."

Snoke nodded as his holo slowly dissipated. "We shall see. We shall see."

* * *

Ben suddenly woke fearful from his restless nap, a distant and familiar caress in the deep corners of his mind. Sweat soaked and out of breath, with the terrible feeling of storms churning and lightning dancing over his skin. Han stood over him with a forced and knowing smile leftover from sleepless nights of Ben's childhood. A comforting hand squeezed his son's shoulder.

"Time to get up, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 comment = 1 serotonin rush


	5. Takodana, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the delayed update, jess had a crazy week and I generally have no concept of time and didn't realize it was saturday until jess told me,,, it was Saturday :/
> 
> hope you enjoy!

There may have been more beautiful worlds in the galaxy than wild lushness of Takodana, but if so, they were unknown to Ben. He never felt at home in the cultivated villas of Naboo, but perhaps that was his father’s influence. Verdant and mild, flecked with bands of white cloud and necklaced with small seas and brightly reflective lakes, it appeared before them as the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace. After feeling the desolation of Jakku in his lungs, a piece of Ben had forgotten how green the galaxy was as if he was looking at lush forests with another’s eyes. He remembered the etchings he found in the AT-AT and shuddered, hoping the shifting sands would be less persistent in his mind.

With Han in the pilot’s chair, Ben copiloting, and Finn and BB-8 standing behind, the cockpit was crowded.

“What are we doing here?”

Within Finn, expectations mixed with uncertainty as he gazed at the unfamiliar world ahead.

“You wanted his help, you’re getting it,” Ben muttered. 

“We’re going to see an old friend,” Han exclaimed.

At the same time, Han noticed Ben staring fixedly out the foreport. He seemed on the verge of tears.

“Hey—y’okay?”

“What? Yeah.” Ben scrubbed a hand over his face as he snapped out of it.

Han watched him for a moment longer with a furrowed brow, then sent the Falcon into a shallow dive, heading for a well-remembered location. Speed stripped away the clouds around them, revealing what looked like endless evergreen forest. As he slowed the ship to suborbital velocity, other features lingered in his passengers’ gaze: rolling hills, rivers, and lakes that glistened like sheets of silver foil.

A towering stone castle came into view as he prepared for touchdown. Looking at it, Finn could not tell by whose hands—or other manipulative appendages—it had been raised. The study of architecture was not a subject on which incipient stormtroopers tended to focus. One side of the castle was dominated by a long freshwater lake. Of more interest to him, the other side featured a landing area crowded with small freighters not unlike the Millennium Falcon. Like the Falcon, the majority of parked craft looked worn and heavily used, but well maintained.

Disembarking, Finn and BB-8 marveled at forest, lake, and castle. Limping slightly but otherwise disdaining his wounds, Chewbacca ignored the rustic panorama in favor of inspecting the underside of the Falcon.

Still on board, Ben popped a storage unit and began rummaging through the contents. From among the jumble, he withdrew one used blaster after another, placing them carefully to one side. He was still at it when Finn came up behind him.

“Solo, I’m not sure what we’re walking into here. A few details would be welcome.”

Half turning, Ben looked back at him, said quietly, “Did you just call me ‘Solo’?”

“Sorry—Ben. Mr. Solo. Look, I’m not asking for information lightly. I’m a pretty big deal in the Resistance. Which puts a real target on my back. I just need to know that there won’t be any conspirators here, okay? No First Order sympathizers? ’Cause they’d be looking out for me now, and I don’t need any surprises.”

“Surprises,” Ben echoed thoughtfully. “Yeah, you’re right. Listen, big deal, no matter where you go, no matter who you happen to run into, the galaxy’s just full of surprises.” 

He handed over a blaster. Finn took the weapon and turned it over in his hands, giving it a professional examination. It was a substantial piece of ordnance. 

Rising, he brushed past him, heading for the exit way. Finn watched him go, wracked with guilt. But there was nothing he could do about it. Not now, anyway.

Outside, Han bumped into his son, “guy got a name?”

Ben glanced back as he debarked the Falcon. 

“Finn.” 

“Finn,” he repeated. “I’ve been thinking about taking on some more crew.”

Ben smiled ruefully at him. “According to what you told us earlier, that didn’t work out so well for them on your last job.”

He brushed it off. “Needed a bigger crew for a bigger job with a bigger ship.” He pointed to where Chewbacca was continuing his inspection. “Not so much with the Falcon. Maybe bring on one more. A second mate. Someone to help out. Someone who can keep up with Chewie and me and who’s smart enough to know when to keep out of the way—”

“Are you offering me a job?” Ben asked suddenly

Han turned and met his stare without blinking. “It doesn’t pay right away and I’m not going to be nice to you and—”

Pleased as well as taken aback, Ben interrupted him. “You’re offering me a job.”

“I’m just thinking about it,” Han corrected him.

“Well…if you did, I’d be flattered.” Ben paused. “But there’s somewhere I need to be.”

“With the Resistance,” Han said knowingly.

He nodded. “Mom needs me.”

Han put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me know if you change your mind, you always have a place with me, kid.” Turning, he called toward the ship. “Chewie! Check her out the best you can. With luck, we won’t be here long.” 

Once Han was satisfied that, if need be, the Falcon could depart in a hurry, they started toward the nearby castle. While Chewbacca remained behind to attend to a number of minor fixes and nurse his injury, the rest of them were able to enjoy the forest and the occasional glimpse among the woods of examples of wildlife. These invariably proved small and nonthreatening. Approaching the impressive structure and its odd, trapezoidal stonework, Finn found himself unable to estimate its age.

“Why are we here again?” he asked as they started up a wide, curving stone staircase.

“To get a clean ship,” Ben explained. “Do you think it was luck that Chewie and Han found the Falcon? If they could find it on their scanners, the First Order’s not far behind. And my X-wing is rusting away on Jakku,” he finished sullenly and indicated the soaring walls now rising before them. Colored flags representing numerous cultures and tribes hung from the battlements, some banners more faded and frayed than others. “The galaxy’s full of watering holes, but nothing like this place. It’s been run by an old smuggler named Maz Kanata for a thousand years. Want to get BB-8 to the Resistance? Maz is our best bet.”

Gently but firmly taking the blaster he had given him out of Finn’s hands, Han pointedly holstered it for him at the back of his belt. “Not an establishment to walk into holding a gun. First impressions are important.

“The most important thing here is to keep a low profile, stay under the radar. Maz is a bit of an acquired taste. So let Han do the talking. And whatever you do, don’t stare.”

Finn replied almost simultaneously. “At what?”

“Any of it,” Ben warned in a low tone, not to startle him but scare him enough into staying quiet.

The entrance was open. A corridor led to a sizable open hall of neatly finished stonework where a hodgepodge of humans, humanoids, and distinctly nonhumans were engaged in what struck Finn as a perpetual round of eating, drinking, gambling, scheming, negotiating, arguing, and occasionally attempting to split one another’s livers. Or some equivalent organ. Leading the way, Han alternately shoved, requested, or cajoled assorted occupants of the hall out of their path, until at last, he halted.

The figure standing in front of him and currently blocking the way was short. Very short indeed, and by the look of what skin and flesh were visible, very old. Abruptly, this decidedly unimpressive humanoid whirled, as if sensing something without seeing it.

What could be seen of the hairless pate beneath the simple gray cap was a withered, weathered yellowish-brown. Huge lenses that were as much goggles as glasses folded forward over both eyes. The nose was small, almost petite, and the mouth thin and drawn. She—for Han had told them it was a she—was dressed simply and practically: baggy dark maroon pants tucked into handmade boots. A vest of some charcoal gray material was fitted over a blue-green sweaterlike shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to just beneath the elbows, exposing skin that was almost gold-colored. A buckle of some silvery material fastened a leatherine belt from which hung an assortment of tech. In contrast to the plain clothing, the collection of bracelets and rings she wore bordered on the ostentatious.

Catching sight of Han, she let out a shriek that reverberated off the walls and belied her size.

_“THE SOLO’S?”_

All activity in the hall immediately ceased as everyone, regardless of species or aural acuity, turned to look in the newcomers’ direction.

“Maz…,” Han said wearily. Ben pinched the bridge of his nose.

Finn shook his head. “Under the radar,” he muttered. “Perfect.”

“You still in business?” Han asked her.

“Barely!” she snapped back and slapped Han’s thigh. “Thanks to a certain mooch who still hasn’t paid me back after nearly twenty years. Can you imagine something so horrible?”

“Yes,” Ben agreed and bent on one knee to carefully embrace her bony shoulders.

Whoever she was—whatever she was—Finn had already decided that here was someone who could deal with Han Solo on an equal basis, at least as far as casual sarcasm was concerned.

“Such manners.” Maz peered up at Han, her goggled eyes wide. “Where’s my boyfriend?”

“Chewie’s repairing the Falcon,” Han told her.

Maz nodded. “That’s one sweet Wookiee. I’m so sorry,” she abruptly said to Finn.

“For what?” Finn asked nervously.

“Whatever trouble he’s dragged you into,” Maz said. “Come! Sit! I can’t wait to hear what you need from me this time,” she said to Han.

The new arrivals headed off, trailing Maz out of the main hall. Being unremarkable specimens of sentient life, they drew only the occasional passing glance.

Among those who watched them go were an enormous hairless mass of slovenly dressed Dowutin muscle called Grummgar and a svelte slice of skin who went by the name Bazine Netal. In contrast to her hulking companion, Bazine was fully human. Exquisitely if severely clad in a long-sleeved dress patterned in an optical illusion of black and gray, complete with black leather skullcap, neckpiece, shoulder covering, and a belt that held a long, lethal blade, she also boasted lips and forefingers painted black. Unlike those whose eyes lingered but briefly on the new visitors, this mismatched couple tracked Han and his companions until they were out of sight. As soon as they had disappeared, still following Maz Kanata, Netal slipped away from the crowd.

The communicator she employed was capable of sending encrypted messages via the central planetary communications booster. With that much power at her disposal, it did not take long to establish a long-range connection.

“Yes. It’s Bazine Netal. I’ve got them.”

* * *

It was a very private place. There was no need to mark it as such. No need for signs or audible warnings or protective devices. Everyone on the ship knew what it was, who it belonged to, and what lay within. None would think of violating the sanctuary. That way lay censure, possibly pain, and quite likely worse.

The lighting within was subdued. There would not have been much to see even in the presence of brighter illumination. A pair of consoles dominated by red lights flanked the doorway. A single projection console sat in the center, attended by a lone chair. Otherwise, the room was sparsely furnished. The individual who claimed the space had no need for the usual accouterments favored by sentient beings. She was content within herself and with who she was.

The alcove where Kira Ren kneeled, facing a darker corner than the rest of the adjoining chambers. She kept it deliberately so, as seemed appropriate for its function. She spoke in a tone different from the one she usually employed when conversing with others. There were no orders to be issued here, no cowering underlings to command. The one with whom she was presently communing would understand everything Ren chose to say, in whatever voice she chose to employ. No need here and now for intimidation, for fear she invoked without trying. Kira Ren spoke, and the object of her words listened in silence.

“Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the light. The Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again the power of the darkness, and I will let nothing stand in our way.”

Alone in the room, Kira Ren—saturnine of aspect, lithe of build, tortured of mien, and troubled eyes— gazed at the silent recipient of her confession.

“Show me— _please.”_

Trembling slightly, she rose and strode off to another portion of her private quarters. There was no response from the one to whom he had been talking: neither argument nor agreement. Only silence from the shape that had been the object of Ren’s fervor: a ghostly, deformed mask that had once belonged to another. To a figure of rumor and legend and fear.

Misshapen and malformed as it was, no one who had once laid eyes upon the countenance that had belonged to Darth Vader would ever forget it.

* * *

“A map leading to the first Jedi temple!” Maz was marveling as she puttered about the kitchen. “To Skywalker himself! I’ve never given up hope for him.”

“Well, that’s good to hear, because I have a favor to ask,” Han said.

Maz looked at him knowingly. “You need a loan. I heard about the rathtars. King Prana’s not happy.” She stopped and looked at Finn. “How’s the food?”

“So delicious,” Finn said enthusiastically between bites.

“I need you to get this droid to the Resistance…,” Han said.

“Me?” Maz said archly.

“…and the loan sounds good too.”

“I see you’re in trouble,” Maz said. “I’ll help you find passage—avoid Snoke’s masked hunter—but this journey to the Resistance isn’t mine to take, and you know it.”

“Leia doesn’t want to see me,” Han said uneasily. Ben pursed his lips but stayed silent, visibly uncomfortable.

“Who can blame her!” Maz exclaimed. “But this fight is about more than you and that good woman. Han, go home.”

“What fight?” Finn asked.

“The only fight: against the dark side. Through the ages, I’ve seen evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First Order. Their shadow is spreading across the galaxy. We must face them. Fight them. All of us.”

Finn snorted. “That’s crazy. Look around. There’s no chance we haven’t been recognized already—I bet the First Order is on their way right—” He broke off as Maz adjusted her goggles, making her eyes grow even larger than usual. “What?” Finn asked indignantly.

Instead of answering right away, Maz’s eyes somehow grew even larger within the goggles, impossibly huge. Then she climbed up onto the table and made her way to stand directly in front of Finn. He started to feel nervous in a way he hadn’t since entering the castle. “Solo, what’s she doing?” he asked.

Han shrugged. “No idea,” he said, “but it ain’t good.”

Maz finally spoke. “I’ve lived for over one thousand years, son. Long enough to see the same eyes in different people.” She adjusted the goggles again, and to Finn’s relief, the pirate’s eyes went back to normal. “I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run,” she said solemnly.

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Finn said in frustration. “Where I’m from. What I’ve seen. You don’t know the First Order as I do. They’ll slaughter us. We all need to run.”  
Maz considered him, then pointed back into the main hall area. “Bighead, red shirt, shiny gun. Bright red helmet with ear flares. They’re bound for the Outer Rim. Will trade transportation for work. Go.”

Awkwardly, Finn rose from his seat. Everything had happened fast. Too fast. The last thing he had anticipated was the fulfillment of his request.

Reaching—slowly—to his service belt, he drew the blaster Ben had given him and offered it to its owner. “It’s been nice knowing you. Really was.”

Han didn’t look at him. “Keep it.”

Finn hesitated, but there was nothing more to say. Pointless words wasted atmosphere. Turning, he walked away.

Watching him go, Ben was confused and hurt by the abrupt turn of events. They had been through a great deal together, he and this strange but agreeable stormtrooper, and his sudden, somewhat inexplicable leave-taking was hitting him hard. Finn was the last person to see Poe alive.

Though his thoughts were churning, Finn managed to keep them under control as he approached the table Maz had pointed out. There were no humans in the group, save possibly the red-helmeted captain, but they eyed him without prejudice. Even the top-heavy, warty, one-legged Gabdorin first mate waited politely for him to state his business. Having been pushed to this point, Finn didn’t hesitate as he addressed the captain.

“I’m told you’re looking for help. I’ll work for a lift to any civilized world on the Outer Rim.”

The first mate replied to him, but Finn didn’t understand a word of whatever language the Gabdorin was speaking. The captain remained silent.

“I don’t know what that was,” he responded, “but it’s a deal.” He smiled, hoping the expression was not found wanting. Or hostile.

The exchange was interrupted by Ben’s arrival, accompanied by an anxious, softly beeping BB-8. He was confused and angry all at once.

“What are you doing?”

Finn smiled anew at the leader of the alien crew. “Give me a second. Or your equivalent time-part.” He edged Ben away from the table, leaving the aliens to mutter incomprehensibly among themselves.

“You heard what Maz said,” Ben hissed at him. “You’re part of this fight. We both are.” He searched his face. “You must feel something…”

“I’m not who or what you think I am. I’m not special. Not in any way.”

He was shaking his head slowly, not comprehending what he was hearing. “Finn, what are you talking about? I’ve watched you, I’ve seen you in action, I’ve…”

His voice tightened as he finally blurted out the truth. “I’m not a hero. I’m not Resistance. I’m a stormtrooper.”

“Taken from a family you’ll never know, raised to do one thing and all that.” Ben put a hand on his shoulder, “I know, _knew,_ but kid you’re here now.”

“No, you don’t get it. I’m a coward.” Finn huffed a breath and shrugged out from Ben’s grip. “My first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for the First Order. So I ran. Right into BB-8 and you, then I lied. I was ashamed of who I was. But I am done with the First Order, I can’t do this. 

Ben shook his head. “Don’t go.”

“Take care of yourself,” he begged him. “Please.” He turned and headed back to the group of waiting aliens.

The red-helmeted captain looked up at him. Finn nodded once, hoping the gesture was as universal as he had been told. “I’m ready whenever you’re ready.” The first mate replied in his stumbling language and Finn nodded a second time. “Whatever.”

The crewmembers rose and headed for the main doorway. As Finn started to go with them, an anguished Ben pivoted and turned his back on him, ignoring BB-8’s troubled beeping.

Finn had wanted to say something more before realizing anything he could come up with would be worse than superfluous. Better to leave it as it was, he told himself. Clean break, no scene, no yelling, and shouting. He went with the members of the alien crew, pausing at the hall exit to glance back just once. Ben was still walking away, not looking in his direction. Just as well, he thought as the doorway closed behind him.

That was what he told himself. But it was not what he was feeling

* * *

Only on very rare occasions did C-3PO encounter a need for forward speed. This was one of them, but his ambulatory programming restricted him to a gait that was less than satisfactory. If only, he mused, he could move as fast as he could talk.

Despite his motive infirmity he eventually found General Organa deep in intense conversation with a tactical specialist. Ignoring the fact that they were engaged in serious discussion, the droid started speaking without prefacing his arrival.

“Princess— I mean, General!” At the sound of the protocol droid’s familiar voice, Leia turned and waved off the tech. “I hate to brag—as you know I was fitted with a humility circuit during my last rebuild, though I cannot imagine why anyone would think I would require such an accessory—I must risk-taking a moment of your time to sing my own praises!”

“Threepio!” She didn’t try to hide her exasperation. “No one has this kind of time!”

“This kind of time was made for precisely this kind of intelligence, General,” the droid insisted proudly. “I believe I have successfully located Beebee-Ate! According to the information I have just received through our scattered but attentive network, Beebee-Ate is presently within the castle of Maz Kanata on Takodana.”

Leia let out a gasp of excitement. “Maz—I knew you could do it, Threepio! Good work! You deserve an extra oil bath.” Murmuring to herself, she started off, the tactical tech in tow. “This changes everything.”

Left behind, the bearer of good news had no one to converse with except himself. As usual, this did not inhibit him.  
“Finally! The appreciation so long overdue.” He paused a moment, not thinking but instead checking on something internal, before again murmuring aloud. “Oh dear. I think the humility circuit may be malfunctioning.”

* * *

“ _Can_ you get the droid to Leia?”  
Still seated at the table, Han had scarcely noticed the commotion on the other side of the crowded hall. When a returning Ben and Chewbacca had not been forthcoming about what had taken place, he had decided not to pursue it. At the moment, he was much more interested in talking to Maz—and getting her to take the troublesome droid off his hands. 

“I know how important it is to her,” he finished.

Maz’s response was somewhat less than helpful. “If it’s so important to her, do as I said before and take it to her yourself. Whether you believe that she wants to see you or not. Han, when you first came to me, your most important decision, involving your most meaningful bonds, was yet to come.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised, frankly. You were always so good at looking ahead. I think now it’s your time to look back. At what—and who—you’ve left behind.”

All the discussion and debate was making Ben weary, unable to meet his father’s eyes when they shifted to him. Coupled with Finn’s confession and his walking out on the rest of them, it made him wonder, not for the first time, what he was doing here. Ben felt lost and alone with how suddenly he had been knocked off his only objective of finding Poe into this madness and scheming for the Resistance. He was only a pilot, after all.

No different, Ben told himself, then he had felt _in_ the Resistance.

Alone…alone…It echoed in his mind as he sat there. Under the weight of his loneliness Han’s voice seemed to fade, and Maz Kanata’s as well, until there was nothing surrounding him but a silence as deep and profound as the distant reaches of space itself.

Then something came, stealthy and identifiable, to fill it. Ben’s head snapped up. 

A feeling, unrecognized yet somehow familiar. Drawn to it, he rose and followed the vision. Locked in conversation, Han and Maz ignored him as he made his way away from the table and toward a distant corridor—but BB-8 followed.

There was a stairway there: ancient stonework leading downward. Perceiving his unease, BB-8 asked what was wrong.

“I don’t know. I—I have to see.” he started down the stairway. Struggling, the droid followed.

The stairway terminated in a deserted, dimly subterranean corridor. Why was he here, he asked himself. When the Force declined to answer, he continued onward with a sigh. Though the passageway was not long, it appeared so to Ben. At the very end was a single door. It almost seemed to vibrate. BB-8 chirped nervously, but he ignored the droid, drawn forward. There was a seal, a lock, on the door. He reached out, only to draw back his hand when it opened before he could make contact.

It was darker still in the room beyond. Among the stone arches and alcoves, he could see crates piled haphazardly and shelves filled with packages heavy with age and dust. A bust of some unknown bearded human sat on the floor next to an antique shield fashioned of an unknown silvery metal. Tarps and cloth-covered much of the collection. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the place, no organization of any kind. Objects of obvious value sat side by side with simple woven baskets and bundles of unknown plants.  
Though curious as to their functions and origins, he ignored them all, moving deeper into the room toward a table on which rested a single wooden box. There was nothing especially impressive about the container, nothing overtly valuable or significant. Yet of all the items in the chamber he was only drawn to it. Behind Ben, not a peep of a beep came from an anxious BB-8.  
The box was not locked. Ben opened it.

A heavy, slow, mechanical breathing filled the room. Turning, he found himself looking down an impressive hallway, its architecture reminiscent of the Old Empire. Peering harder, farther, he saw in the distance a section of the famed Cloud City. Two figures were locked in combat, distant, distant. Someone, somewhere, spoke a name. 

It starts at the end and at the beginning. Ben exhales sharply through his nose. 

“Hello?” Wreathed in the irrationality of the moment, he called hopefully to end this sooner but received no answer.

A girl appeared at the end of the hallway, she sat down, curled against a wall of a thousand scratch marks. Ben started toward her, the air of Jakku choking his lungs, his shadow falling over her. The Force hummed around her unsteadily and newly awakened, agitated and sparking in a way that he recognized. She looked up with bright, tear-tight eyes. He reached a hand toward her, to assure her that she’s not the monster she thinks she is, but another spoke. 

A voice, _that_ voice from his own childhood, that low, chilling croon, “I am here for you, child.” 

Before he could scream the world turned inside out, causing him to trip and fall. He doesn’t have the time 

Onto the wall, which had become the ground. Not the adamantine ceramic he had just seen, but dry grass. Nearby, a lightsaber slammed into the ground. A missed thrust, a statement of power—he didn’t know, couldn’t tell. A hand appeared to pull it upward.

Day became night, sky ominous and filled with rain, cold and chilling to the bone. Ben was standing, he was sitting, he was looking up—to see someone, a warrior, take the full force of the lightsaber, screamed and fell.

Battlefield then, all around Ben. Putting a hand to his mouth, Ben rose and turned. As he turned, he found herself confronted by seven tall, cloaked figures, dark and foreboding, all armed. At the center, the shortest of them stepped toward him, but he couldn’t feel any malice in the action, only curiosity. Ben realized she wasn’t meant for saving, but destined to be a monster by design. A fleeting, untamed thought flashed; how cruel of him to want to see her unredeemed when he nearly took her place, equally alone. Soaked and shivering, he stumbled backward, as she raised her ignited saber and struck in a wide arc above his head. The wall which she cowered against as a child still crackling and molten. Ben fell away from her wrath and the voice coiled inside her head. He half-turned and firelight instead of the crackle of her saber illuminated him, firelight from a distant, burning temple.

The seven vanished. A sound made Ben turn and he blinked in surprise at the sight of a small blue-and-silver R2 unit. A new figure appeared. Falling to his knees, he reached out to the droid with an artifice of an arm—metal and plastics and other materials with which he was distinctly familiar. _Luke._ Ben blinked and both were gone.

Around him now: barren, snowy woods, the sounds of unknown forest creatures, and a conviction that he must be losing his mind. At her mercy, blood filled his mouth in this timeline, as she stalked toward him, a blue light cast over her from the legacy saber somehow in her hand, and looked entirely natural in her grip. Once more he climbed to his feet, his chilled breath preceding her. From in front of him, not far away, came the sounds of battle: the cries of the wounded and the clashing of weapons. Then behind her, another voice.

 _That_ voice.

“Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

Ben whirled, glazed eyes desperately scanning the dark gaps between the slender trees, trying to penetrate the darkness.

“Where are you?” he started to run but stopped when his own voice answered.

“I’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”

 _“What are you trying to tell me?”_ Ben shouted.

No response. Ben started forward again, running, only to be brought to a sudden halt by a figure appearing without warning from behind a tree. 

He screamed, and screamed again, and fell backward, backward, sitting down hard in—

Ben was in the underground corridor, sitting on the cold old stone, his chest pounding.

“There you are.”

The voice made him jump. But it was only Maz Kanata, standing alone in the passageway between him and the far stairway.

“Sorry, it was just stronger than the other—” Bem stammered as he struggled to catch his breath.

Maz looked from him to the open doorway and then back to Ben. “That’s what happens when you ignore it for so long.”

Ben stood unsteadily, his mind still rocked by a succession of rapidly evaporating nightmares. BB-8 rolled out of the room to come to a stop beside him.

“I—I shouldn’t have gone in there.” 

“Listen to me.” Maz was watching him closely. “I know this means something. Something very special…”

“I need to get back.” Ben shook his head as if the simple physical action might somehow clear everything from his memory. “I just want to find Poe.” 

Maz came closer. “Yes, Han told me that.” Her voice was gentle now, not at all the hard, sardonic tone she had employed up until this moment. “There are more people who could use your help. Poe may not come back. But there’s someone who still could. With your help.”

Tears were beginning to trickle down Ben’s face. He’d had enough, of all of this. It was too much. 

“No,” he croaked.

“You know that lightsaber was Luke’s. And his father’s before him. It reached out to _you._ The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light. It’s always been there. It will guide you. The saber. Take it.”

Ben’s voice hardened as he wiped away tears. “I’m never touching that thing again. I don’t want any part of this. There’s a reason my mother didn’t choose the path of the Jedi, Maz.”  
Without another word Ben took off running, heading determinedly toward the stairs that beckoned just ahead. Accelerating, BB-8 easily kept pace. Maz watched him go and sighed.

One could teach knowledge. One could teach skills. One could even, she knew, teach something of the Force.

But patience had to be learned alone.


	6. Takodana, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sir, we’re still searching for Solo, but the droid that’s wanted was spotted heading west, with a man.”
> 
> At this Ren said nothing, but instead looked sharply in the indicated direction. She began what she was trained to do, she hunted.

The mass rally was impressive. Those who were present would never forget it. Which was the point of such things.

A thousand or so stormtroopers and their officers fronted assembled TIE fighters and lesser machines of war. Around them rose the central edifices of Starkiller Base. Towering still higher above the buildings were the snowy crags of the surrounding mountain range that simultaneously shut off and shielded the central portion of the base from the world around it.

Glorying at the moment, General Hux stood at the head of the assembly flanked by his senior officers, all aligned atop a raised platform backed by an enormous crimson-and-black banner stamped with the insignia of the First Order. Enhanced by artfully concealed amplification, his voice boomed across the troops assembled on the parade ground.

“Today is the end! The end of a government incapacitated by corruption! The end of an illegitimate regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment, in a system far from here, the New Republic lives and wheezes, staggering onward, depraved and ineffectual and unable in any way to support the citizenry it claims to serve. Meanwhile, a host of systems are left to wither and die—without aid, without care, without hope. Drowning in its own decadence, the New Republic ignores them, unaware that these are its final moments.” A hand swept sharply downward.

“This fierce machine which you have built, to which you have dedicated your lives and labor and upon which we now stand, will bring a final end to the worthless Senate and its dithering members. To their cherished fleet. When this day is done, all the remaining systems in their hundreds will bow to the dictates of the First Order. And all will remember this as the last day of the last Republic!”

Turning, Hux solemnly gave the signal as the assembled thousand turned to face the mountainous, snowy landscape. Turned, and waited.

Deep within the mountain, engineers and techs concluded the final firing protocol for the new weapon. The last connection was made.

Above, the rally ground was silent. Then, at a great distance, an impossible blast of light shot into the sky. Despite the remoteness of the actual firing zone, the light was so bright that despite their protective masks a number of the troopers had to cover their eyes. The blast was followed by a terrible concussive roar as a vast column of atmosphere was displaced. In spite of the distance, everyone was pushed back and many were knocked down by the ground tremors that followed. Airborne creatures by the thousands took fright and took flight.

Having been gathered in stages by an immense array of coupled collectors located on the other side of the planet, a tremendously compact volume of a type of dark energy known as quintessence had been accumulated at the center of the planet. Held in place inside a roiling molten metal core by the frozen world’s powerful magnetic field, augmented by the weapons system’s own containment field, it grew until there was nothing like it—nothing natural like it—in this corner of the galaxy. Penetrating to within a predetermined distance of the containment field, an immense hollow cylinder permitted a way out while ensuring that when the weapon was unleashed, gigantic ground quakes would not roil the world’s fragile surface. When the weapons engineers fired the device, a breach was induced in the containment field. At incredible velocity and accelerating exponentially, the concentrated volume of quintessence escaped, transforming as it did so into a state known as phantom energy and following the artificial line of egress that had been provided. Assuming that the rotation and inclination of the planet had been taken into account, the released blast of concentrated phantom energy would travel along a perfectly linear path, punching a small Big Rip through hyperspace itself until it left the galaxy—

—or encountered something in its path that was of sufficient mass to intercept it.

* * *

Overwhelmed and exhausted both physically and mentally, Ben finally slowed to a halt. Running solved nothing. Besides, he had nowhere to run to, and he could not run from himself. A familiar electronic chirp made him turn.

BB-8 slowed as he approached, beeping inquisitively. He was far too tired to acknowledge the little droid’s concern.

“No,” he replied, gesturing. “You have to go back.” More beeping and he could only shake his head tiredly. “I thought I was strong enough. Or tough enough. But I’m—”

Ben suddenly doubled over as the Force collapsed.

* * *

Traveling faster than anything ever generated by artificial means, through a torn portion of space-time whose properties were not fully understood, the concentrated glowing ball of energy lit the night sky above Republic City. Leia’s envoy Korr Sella was among those who gazed uncomprehendingly at the inexplicable phenomenon. Disturbed space was energized and lit up by its passage. It was as if a minuscule sun had suddenly appeared from nowhere, heading directly for the world on which she stood.

It struck with enough force to penetrate the crust and the mantle. Stunned scientists assumed the globe had been hit by an asteroid. The reality was much, much worse. So powerful was the orb of phantom energy that as it dissipated within the planetary core, it blocked the free flow of elysium. Gravitons that normally moved freely and harmlessly through the planet suddenly were blocked from doing so. Almost immediately, the resulting graviton flux released enough heat to ignite the core…

Turning the planet into what astrophysicists called a pocket nova.

Expanding outward from the explosion, a tremendous burst of heat tore through the Hosnian system’s other worlds, searing their surfaces clean of life and incidentally obliterating all settlements, installations, and outposts, as well as the hundreds of ships belonging to the Republic fleet. In its wake, the detonation left behind a blazing, spherical mass. The home of the Republic had become a new binary system: one utterly devoid of life.

* * *

The alerts that sounded within the Resistance base were like no other. Every warning telltale lit; every audible alarm went off. Confusion reigned until monitoring and detection systems finally settled on an explanation. An explanation that was impossible.

From his station, Lieutenant Brance looked over at where Leia stood beside C-3PO, scarcely able to put words to what his instruments were telling him.

“General, the Republic command—the entire Hosnian system—it’s all—gone.” He stared incredulously at his readouts.

Stunned silence filled the control chamber. Some catastrophes were simply too overwhelming to draw immediate comment. Everyone knew the tragedy could not arise from natural causes: It had happened too quickly. That meant…

“How is it possible?” C-3PO’s optics allowed him to rove from one readout to the next without having to approach them physically. “There is no record, no data relating to a weapon of such magnitude.” He looked to his right, suddenly alarmed, as Leia swayed where she was standing. “General, are you all right?”  
Leaning against a console for support, she steadied herself. “A great disturbance—in the Force. Deaths and passings. Too much death, too many passings.” Straightening, her expression grim, she walked over to confront the wiry, slight Admiral Statura. Despite his experience in battle, he was left as shaken by the revelation as anyone else in the room. What had just happened could scarcely be comprehended.

“Admiral,” she said, “we must find this new weapon’s point of origin. As soon as possible and before it can be used again.”

Statura nodded tersely. “I’ll send a reconnaissance ship immediately.”

She acknowledged his response as Captain Wexley called to her. “General, we’re ready for you.”

It was to be a conference on strategy like no other, she knew. To confront a threat that exceeded everything else that had gone before it. She spared a moment’s thought for her envoy, Sella, who had been on the Republic capital world when it had been destroyed. And another moment for all who had perished, regardless of their personal or political beliefs. First Alderaan, now the Hosnian system. No one, she knew, should have to be witness to the death of an entire world.

She had been subjected to two.

It must not be allowed to happen again.

* * *

The crowd of visitors who had filed out of the old castle had turned their eyes to the sky. A light had appeared there, a new star bright enough to be visible in the daytime. There was much speculation as to its cause. Someone suggested that a star had gone nova, but there were no nearby white dwarfs in the section of the sky in question. The stellar apparition was inexplicable, which in turn led to fear and uncertainty among those gazing upward.

From a pouch, Chewbacca withdrew a ponipin and handed it to Han. Activating the compact device, Han aimed it at the light in the sky. Automatically, it linked to the much more powerful stellar navigation instrumentation onboard the _Millennium Falcon_ , providing a real-time reading of the bit of starfield under scrutiny. Within the ponipin’s lens, statistics and readouts combined to create a picture of what was happening in the chosen corner of the cosmos.

Before he could voice an opinion, his fears were confirmed by someone behind him.

“It was the Republic. The First Order—they’ve gone and done it.” A concerned Finn looked past him. “Where’s Ben?”

That immediately changed Han’s focus. “Thought he was with you.”

A voice interrupted them, familiar yet now turned uncommonly forceful. They turned to see Maz approaching.

“You three come with me. There’s something you must see.”

The subterranean corridor in the castle was one Maz had visited not long before. It was also a place to which she had not expected to return for some time. Circumstances, however, had changed.  
A familiar door opened to admit her and those behind her. Dark, treasure-filled, and in the distant dark, a box on a table. “You will need this.”  
From the box she removed a lightsaber. Finn eyed it uncertainly, but even in the poor light, Han recognized it immediately.

Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

“Where’d you get that?” Han demanded.

“Long story. A good one—for later.” Surprising them all, she handed the weapon not to Han or Chewbacca, but to Finn. “Your friend is in grave danger. Take it—and find Ben.”

Finn stared at the device. It felt comfortable in his hand. Lighter than a blaster. Was he worthy of such a gift? Only time and circumstance would tell.

Something potent and loud slammed into the castle, causing dust and rock to fall from the ceiling.

“Those beasts,” Maz said. “They’re here.”

* * *

For such a small droid, BB-8 was remarkably persistent. Kneeling beside him, Ben continued to argue. He pinched the bridge of his nose again, still fighting the vision and the nausea of the Hosnian System destruction. 

“No, you can’t. You have to go back. You’re important. Much more so than I am. Han’ll help you to fulfill your mission, more than I ever could. I’m sorry.”  
He would have continued but for the thrum overhead that drowned out his words as well as BB-8’s startled beeping. The fleet of First Order ships thundered overhead, dropping toward the castle. The castle—where his family still was.

Racing through the trees and back toward the castle, Ben slowed at the top of a slight rise. Wide-eyed, he could only hope that his father had managed to flee the complex before the attack began in earnest. Swooping TIE fighters were methodically reducing the stone walls and towers to dust, while others strafed smugglers and traders who were frantically running for cover. Their panicked flight was futile, as they were quickly intercepted by squads of stormtroopers who had landed nearby.

Turning to run in the other direction, he caught himself just in time as a shuttle touched down nearby. Without the slightest hesitation, the cloaked figure of Kira Ren emerged and strode forward to join the battle. A stunned Ben could only track her with his eyes. He had seen this woman before, in a daydream. In a nightmare.

Beside him, a tree erupted in flame as splintered branches flew. One of the patrolling squads of troopers had spotted him and opened fire. Taking cover, he drew his blaster, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The moment of panic that ensued when it failed to fire vanished when he remembered to slip off the safety.

“Dad, for kriff sake’s, I don’t _need_ safety,” he muttered. 

Once activated, the weapon proved as accurate as it was functional, taking down two of the troopers and giving the rest reason to pause their pursuit. Calling BB-8, who was at his side in an instant, he started back into the woods and away from the scene of combat.

“Keep going, stay out of sight,” he told the droid. “I’ll fight ’em off.” A querulous beeping prompted a brave, defiant reply: “I hope so, too.”

Emerging from behind the rocks and trees where they had taken cover from the devastatingly precise fire that had hit two of their number, the troopers resumed the search—but more cautiously than before. Spotting Ren moving through the debris, one trooper hurried to report.

“Sir, we’re still searching for Solo, but the droid that’s wanted was spotted heading west, with a man.”

At this Ren said nothing, but instead looked sharply in the indicated direction. She began what she was trained to do, she hunted.

* * *

The woods closed in around him as the tie fighters swooped down. Still shaken but now mostly annoyed, he muttered to himself about the situations he always found himself in. Ben kept himself from jumping at every sound, glanced sharply at every wind-rustled branch and falling leaf. Holding tightly to the blaster, he held off firing defensively in the direction of every movement for fear of alerting his pursuers to his location. Sensing something just ahead, he slowed and brought the blaster up. A figure stepped out from behind a tree.

It was the nightmare, and she was wielding a lightsaber unlike any he had ever seen in the stories he had read. Its beam was intense, burning red like a controlled flame, and near the hilt, a pair of shorter beams shot outward, perpendicular to the main shaft.

He fired, again and again. Each shot from Ben’s blaster she deflected with the lightsaber’s beam. Almost as if it were a game, he thought in terror as he continued to fire. She was playing with him.  
Until, evidently, she tired of it. She raised a hand, held it toward him, palm outward. As Ben inhaled sharply, his hand froze on the blaster. He tried to turn, to run, but his legs refused to respond. He could only stand there among the trees, taking in slow, measured breaths, as she came toward him.

Halting an arm’s length away, she studied his face from behind her mask. When she finally spoke, she sounded at once impressed and surprised. “The man I’ve heard so much about, trying to kill me. Knowing nothing about me.”

Finding that his mouth and lips worked, he replied defiantly, “Why wouldn’t I kill you? Rey.”

She was at least still human enough to flinch. Her hand tightened around the grip of her saber and he could hear the deep, steadying breath through her modulator. 

She walked slowly around his paralyzed body. Frightened, he tried to follow her with his eyes, but his head would not turn. “So afraid,” she murmured. “Yet I should be the one who should be scared. You shot first. You think of the Order as if it were barbaric. And yet, it is I who was forced to defend myself against you.”

Having circled him, she moved even closer, peering up into his face, his eyes. Then the red lightsaber she held came up: close to his flesh, close enough to cast a red glow on his skin that he could feel the hum of the kyber crystal in his heart.

“Something.” she sounded mystified. “There is something…you have that I want.”

* * *

Reaching the outdoors after having worked their way through mounds of debris, Han and the others kept to the cover of collapsed stone walls as they took stock of their surroundings. Maz turned to Finn.

“Go. Find Ben and the droid.”

He looked back the way they had come. “Lost my blaster. I need a weapon.”

Displaying surprising strength for one so small, Maz grabbed the wrist holding the lightsaber and raised it up. “You have one!”

He stared down at her, then at the saber. Did she really expect him to use the old ceremonial weapon? Blasters he knew, and pulse rifles, but he had never held a lightsaber in his life. Nor did he know anyone who had. Still, if Maz Kanata had that kind of confidence in him…He activated the device, admiring the lethal beam.

It made an excellent target for the stormtroopers who opened fire on them. Taking cover, Han and Chewbacca returned fire. No one noticed the troopers who had come up behind them—except Finn. Charging, he surprised one trooper with the glowing blade of the lightsaber, then another. A third came at him with a close-quarters weapon and the two locked in combat. Despite lack of any training with a lightsaber, Finn was athletic and courageous. In tandem with such traits, the saber made him a formidable fighter.

* * *

Shutting down and belting her lightsaber, Ren contemplated her immobile captive. Reaching up slowly, she touched his face. The pressure she applied was not physical. Refusing to meet her gaze, Ben looked away, straining with the agony of resistance, hardly daring to breathe. If only he could get a hand free, a leg—but no part of his body responded to his commands.

Surprised by what she was finding, Ren lowered her hand. Relieved of the mental intrusion, Ben sucked in great, long draughts of air. Her brows drew together and a reluctance to believe her own findings colored her comments.

“Is it true, then? You’re nothing special after all? You’re just a— a Resistance pilot?”

He agonized as she stared back at him, a loneliness stretched taut between them, then she shoulders sagged. Surely Ben could at least defend his mind as his uncle once taught him. He’d tried to keep his mind blank, his memory locked, and still, she had wormed her way in, like how she wormed her way into their lives and set it ablaze. She touched him anew, closer to his temple after she brushed his hair back. This time the pain of trying to stave her off brought tears streaming down his face. She was within his mind and his thoughts, and there was nothing— _nothing!_ —he could do to keep her out. To resist. But he kept trying, trying…

“Hmm…,” she murmured softly. “You’ve met the traitor who served under me. A minor annoyance has grown larger than he deserves. You find him more than tolerable.” She drew back slightly, bemused. “You’ve even begun to care for him. A weakness, such distractions.”

Suddenly she put her face so close to his that they were almost touching, with only the barrier of the mask and soft rasp of the modulator between them. “You’ve seen it! The map! It’s in your mind right now…”

He could hardly swallow as he strained to pull away from her, anything to pull away, to get her out.

Ben wanted to scream, but she would not allow it. A twist of her wrist and his world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a;lfaksj sorry for another day late update! I have a class friday evenings and i accidentally read in bed all day yesterday 
> 
> but I GET TO WRITE THE INVERSE INTERROGATION SCENE WHICH I'VE BEEN WANTING OT DO FOR _Y E A R S_


	7. Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”_

The trooper who had engaged Finn was big, strong, and agile. Finn realized the fight would have long since been over if not for the trooper’s regard for the lethal potential of the lightsaber. That didn’t stop him from finally knocking Finn to the ground and raising his own weapon for a killing strike—only to fall backward, shot before he could deliver the blow.

Rolling over, a relieved Finn saw Han racing toward him, blaster in hand, with Chewbacca not far behind. The older man reached down and an unexpectedly powerful grip helped Finn to his feet.

“You okay, big deal?”

Finn had to grin at that. “I’m okay, yeah—thanks.”

They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a dozen stormtroopers, acting in concert and with weapons aimed, atop a nearby mass of debris. Han started to bring his gun around, hesitated.

The odds sucked.

“Drop the weapons!” the lead trooper ordered. “Now!”

Surrounded by blasters, they had no choice but to comply. One trooper made a beeline for the lightsaber and picked it up. Han’s thoughts were racing as the second squad of troopers appeared behind them.

“How are we gonna get out of this one? There’s too many of ’em,” he muttered to Chewbacca. When no reply was forthcoming, he added, “Any ideas?” The Wookiee moaned a terse reply, to which Han responded with a half sneer. “Very funny.”

“Hands on heads. Let’s go.” The lead trooper gestured in the direction of a parked transport. “Try anything and I’ll shoot your legs off.”

They didn’t try anything. There is a time to take chances and a time to wait for opportunity, Han knew. What he didn’t expect was that the latter would put in an appearance so soon.  
He had never been so happy to see a squadron of X-wings.

Accompanied by other attack craft, the familiar shapes came in low and fast, roaring over the lake and the forest as they blew apart the First Order ships whose pilots, feeling secure, had nearly all landed their craft in the vicinity of the destroyed castle. A perplexed Chewbacca barked his surprise at the unexpected appearance of the non-Republic ships.

“It’s the Resistance!” Han yelled as hope surged within him. 

Marked in black, one particular X-wing swooped in dangerously low, attacking at the treetop level. Blast after blast took out parked TIE fighters, clusters of troopers, and support vehicles. Whoever was piloting was skilled enough to fire repeatedly without wasting a single energy burst.

As the captives dove for cover, another blast scattered their captors as they tried to fight back armed only with hand weapons. When the dust cleared enough for them to see, the three rose, and Han and Chewbacca recovered their weapons. Reaching for a trooper’s blaster, Finn hesitated. It took him a moment of searching to find the dropped lightsaber. Turning his gaze skyward, he followed the black-stained X-wing as it looped around in an impossibly tight arc, coming back for another run.

“That’s one helluva pilot!” he commented.

“Yeah,” Han yelled as he beckoned to the younger man. “How about you appreciate the maneuvers from behind cover before you get your admiring self-shot?”  
—  
At the sound of nearby explosions, Ren ceased her probing, but she did not remove her hand from Ben’s face as she turned toward the now ruined castle. Ben remained standing before her, unable to move, gazing blankly into the distance. A clutch of stormtroopers, breathing hard, came toward them through the trees.

“Sir,” the leader gasped, his alarm and dismay evident, “Resistance fighters!”

Ren considered. Though she was not technically in charge of battlefield decisions, no officer would attempt to overrule any decision she chose to make.

“Pull our troops out. We have what we need.”

The squad leader saluted, lingered a moment to look on in fascination at a gesture from Ren the young man standing motionless before he collapsed, and then the trooper hastened to relay the command lest his interest in something that was none of his business be noticed. He had no wish to join the man on the ground in a state of oblivion.

The black-marked X-wing swooped low to take out yet another TIE fighter still on the ground. The retreating stormtroopers, rushing to board their transports, were easy targets for the castle’s survivors.

Two, running from the furious defenders, were taken out by Finn, using a recovered blaster. As he looked around for more stragglers, Finn found his attention drawn to a singular figure striding through the edge of the forest. He almost looked away before catching sight of and identifying the burden the cloaked officer was carrying into a shuttle of atypical design. Finn’s spirits plunged.

_“BEN!”_

Ignoring the fire of retreating stormtroopers, paying no attention to the blasts that gouged the dirt around him, Finn raced toward the shuttle—only to watch helplessly as it lifted off and rose toward the clouds. Irrationally, he tried to follow the dark spot as it rose higher into the sky, running beneath it until it shrank to a dot and then finally disappeared.

“No, no, no, no…Ben, Ben!”

Ascending, other First Order ships formed up in the wake of the shuttle, creating a tight escort to seal it off from any pursuit. Utilizing oculars far more sensitive than those of any human, BB-8 tracked the battle group until it had receded even beyond his sight, lost at the edge of space. The droid paused for a moment, pondering.

Out of breath, tears glistening on his cheeks, Finn slowed as he drew alongside Han.

“She took him!” Finn managed to gasp. “She took him! Did you see that? He’s gone, Ben’s gone!”

Reaching out, Han shoved Finn aside without meeting the younger man’s gaze. “I know!”

Knocked off-balance, Finn slowed to a stop, stunned, his eyes fixed on Han’s retreating back. He was too shocked to know how to respond. As he stood staring, he noticed Maz a short distance away, speaking to BB-8.

“Yes, it’s true, they have Ben now,” Maz said. “But we can’t give up hope.” She looked down at the droid, who beeped forlornly. “Go,” she told the droid. “Share what you have with your people. They need you.”

Finn walked over to her, and together Maz and Finn watched the droid roll off. “Looks like I’ve got some cleaning up to do, hmm?” Maz said. Then the diminutive smuggler looked up at him and smiled in satisfaction. “Oh wow…I see something else now.”

“See what?” Finn asked.

“I see the eyes of a warrior.”

* * *

Han waited until the Resistance transport had settled itself completely before approaching the main access. His attention fixed on the portal, he looked away only to nod down at the round figure of BB-8, who had rolled up beside him. The droid’s presence confirmed Han’s expectations. He would be surprised if either of them had guessed wrong as to who was going to exit the transport first. However, he was willing to be surprised.

He wasn’t.

Husband and wife stood regarding each other for the first time in years. Amid the smoke and drifting embers, neither said a word. Emerging from behind the figure in the portal, C-3PO walked out into the scorched field to confront the motionless droid beside Han.

“BB-8! Come here. I’m here to assist you in translating what—”

It took a moment for the countenance of the man standing beside the spherical droid to register on C-3PO’s preoccupied consciousness. A visage changed by time and altered by experience, it required a bit of additional visual processing before the protocol droid was able to link it to the images in his memory.

“Oh! Han Solo! It is I, See-Threepio! You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.” Turning to the woman standing in the transport threshold, he continued excitedly. “Look who it is! Han Solo! Isn’t that— Excuse me, Prin— uh, General. Sorry. Come, BB-8. We need to settle on a procedure for debriefing.”

The two droids moved off. Chewbacca found an excuse to study the configuration of a grove of nearby trees that had somehow survived the recent conflagration.

Breaking the awkward silence, Han finally spoke to Leia.

“You changed your hair.”

Her gaze dropped from his face. “Same jacket.”

“No. New jacket.”

Unable to stand it a moment longer, Chewie gave in to emotion. Stepping forward, he wrapped Leia in a warm embrace that momentarily resulted in her disappearance within a mass of fur. Letting her go, he moaned a few words that contained far more depth of feeling than would be apparent to an outsider unfamiliar with the Wookiee language and boarded the transport.

Left alone again, husband and wife also embraced. Han murmured over her shoulder, “I saw her. She was here and I know you— she stole Ben, Leia.”

Hearing this, she closed her eyes. They let the silence take them.

* * *

D’Qar’s terrain was green and verdant, with flourishing trees that put those on most worlds to shame in size and appearance.

Careful not to damage a single one of the immense, unique growths, the Resistance squadron put down between them. Grassy mounds camouflaged hangars and other structures. Resistance techs were everywhere in evidence, repairing damaged craft, running cables, cleaning, and refurbishing. The base was a hive of activity, nearly all of which was hidden from above. One restoration team was hard at work on the parked Millennium Falcon, an ugly duckling among the sleeker X-wings and support craft.

The sight of a singular figure in the cockpit of an X-wing that had just landed sent Finn running. Fast as he was moving, he was no match for BB-8. Rolling at maximum speed, the droid nearly knocked him down as it shot past him in its haste to reach the fighter with the black insignia. Its canopy was already open; the pilot had removed his helmet and was chatting with one of the techs as he descended from the cockpit.

Poe Dameron.

No wonder, Finn thought, he and the others had marveled at the pilot’s skill during the course of the counterattack at Maz’s castle. This was clearly, indisputably, the best pilot in the Resistance. His presence, however, defied reason. Ben Solo had been right all along; he had believed fiercely in his friend's survival, and now that man was standing before Finn once again.

Finn just stared at him, hardly believing what he was seeing.

Kneeling and chatting with BB-8, the pilot was nodding at something the droid was saying. It took him a moment to look up and glance to his right. The expression on his face when he recognized Finn was no less astonished than that of the ex-trooper. Smiling, he rose and gestured as Finn continued toward him.

For a moment they just stared, each overwhelmed to find the other alive. Finn could only shake his head in wonder.

“Poe,” he said. “Poe Dameron. Best pilot in the Resistance. I can attest to that because I got to see him in action. Hell, I was in action with him!”

“Finn!” the other man shouted with a grin. “Bravest trooper in the— Well, ex-trooper.”

They embraced, then stood back from each other.

“You’re alive!” Finn’s observation was heartfelt.

“So are you,” Poe countered, adding the unnecessary.

Finn studied him intently. “You look like you’re in one piece. I can hardly believe it. I thought you were dead: shot up in that TIE fighter we stole. I ejected. When I finally found the wreckage, I looked for you. Pulled your jacket out of your ship before it got swallowed by the sand. What happened to you?”

“I wasn’t dead, just momentarily out of it,” the pilot explained. “Came around long enough to see that you had got out. Pulled out of the dive just long enough to set down—hard. The impact threw me clear. Woke up at night; no you, no ship, no nothing. Went looking—in the wrong direction. Got picked up by some itinerant trader.” He grinned. “Tell you all about it sometime.” A plaintive beep caused him to turn and look down. “BB-8 says that you saved him.”

Finn eyed the droid, remembering Ben bent to fix its antenna. “It wasn’t just me.” 

“Either way, you completed my mission.” Poe unaware of Finn’s meaning gestured at their surroundings. “BB-8 is here, where he was supposed to come all along. And you saved my jacket.”

Finn started to slip out of it. “Oh, sorry—here.”

Poe grinned anew. “No, no. Just kidding. You keep it. It suits you.” He held up an arm. “I’ve got a new one. Suits me.” His tone turned somber. “You’re a good man, Finn. The Resistance needs the help of more like you.”

“Poe—I need your help.”

The pilot shrugged. “Anything.”

“I need to see General Organa,” Finn told him. “Can you manage that?”

* * *

Buried deep in the native vegetation, the base command center was staffed by guards at multiple levels. The readily recognized Poe, however, had no difficulty proceeding deeper into the complex or bringing his friend with him.

When they arrived at the conference room, they found Leia conversing earnestly with a number of senior Resistance officers. From his training, Finn recognized among them the prominent admirals Statura and Ackbar. All looked over as the two younger men entered. Without hesitating, Poe moved directly to Leia.

“General Organa. Sorry to interrupt, but”—he indicated his companion—“this is Finn and he needs to talk to you.”

Excusing herself, she turned away from the officers and directly to Finn. “And I need to talk to him.” She took Finn’s hand.

She had, Finn mused as he gazed back at her, dark eyes that had seen too much and reminded her strangely of Ben.

“That was incredibly brave, what you did. Renouncing the First Order is almost unheard of. To do that, and then to compound the risk by saving this man’s life, marks you as…”

Clearly, she had been fully briefed about Finn’s exploits. Not that any of that mattered, not now. Anyway, he had grown immune to compliments he didn’t think he deserved. What was important was that every passing moment had become precious to him. Otherwise, he could never have imagined interrupting someone like General Organa.

“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m here to talk about a friend of mine who was taken prisoner during the clash on Takodana.”

“Don’t worry, we’re getting my son back.”

The news that Ben Solo was General Organa’s son startled Finn, only reminding him that all he knew of his friend was that he was a good man, but having the blood of a scoundrel and a princess in his veins seemed to be a significant detail. Before he could comment further, Poe jumped in. There was little he wouldn’t do to help Finn and Ben, but the needs of the Resistance had to outweigh everyone’s personal concerns.

“Finn’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system. He worked on the world where it’s based.”

Leia’s excitement was palpable. “You worked on the weapon itself?”

“No,” Finn demurred. “I’m a trooper, not an engineer or a physicist. But I’ve had some tech training, and in the course of that, everyone was told the purpose of the base. I can’t tell you how the weapon functions; the science is beyond me. But I do know where it is. Or rather, where it’s controlled from.”

“No reason to keep that a secret from the people guarding it,” Poe pointed out with quiet glee, “since stormtroopers never defect.”

“We’re desperate,” Leia told Finn, “for anything you can tell us. Until the Hosnian system was annihilated, we didn’t even know such a weapon existed.”

“It’s located on the world that serves as the First Order’s main base,” Finn told her. “I’m sure that’s where they’ve taken Ben. I need to get there, fast.”

“I’ll do everything in my power,” she replied. “You have my word. I’m sure you understand that because of what happened to the Hosnian system...” She indicated the nearby group of officers. “Right now I need you to tell Admiral Ackbar all you know. Everything you can remember about the First Order base, down to the smallest and seemingly most insignificant detail.” She paused again for a moment, lost in thought.

“And my son,” she inquired, her voice strengthening. “What can you tell me that might help us locate him? Where does Rey operate?”

Finn struggled to contain his confusion. “Rey?”

A strong voice, not human, rumbled behind Finn. Turning, he found himself staring back at the widely set eyes of Admiral Ackbar.

“Come with me, young man. I wish to hear everything and anything you have to say, and myself, I have a great many questions to ask you.”

* * *

Sitting up on the scanner bed in the med center, Chewbacca was quiet as Dr. Kalonia worked on the Wookiee’s injured shoulder. Dark of hair and eyes with a kindly demeanor, the physician was far more adept than Finn had been, and the device she was employing could not be felt even while it was in use. As the lingering pain faded, Chewie growled appreciatively at the doctor.

“You’re most welcome.”

The Wookiee looked over and down at himself. All signs of the wound had nearly been erased, at which sight he groaned softly.

“That sounds very scary,” Kalonia commented as she worked. Another series of gentle moans. “Yes, you’re very brave.”

* * *

The search had taken BB-8 some time, but he finally found what he was looking for. Or rather, who. Or maybe both, since an intelligent droid technically qualified as both a who and a what. In the dark, dusty storeroom he rolled over to the R2 unit and beeped a greeting, the transmission sequence too rapid and too exhaustive for any human to follow. It didn’t matter. There was no response from the immobile R2 unit.

BB-8 tried again, utilizing a different droid language. When that also failed, he moved forward and gave the other mechanical a forceful nudge. Like everything else, that too failed to generate a response.

Observing the unsuccessful interaction, C-3PO came forward out of the shadows.

“You’re wasting your time, I’m afraid. It is very doubtful that Artoo would have the rest of the map in his backup data.” When BB-8 queried the protocol droid, C-3PO responded without hesitation.

“He’s been locked down in self-imposed low-power mode. He just hasn’t been the same since Master Luke went away.”

A new voice, that of a human this time, called to them. “BB-8!”

In response, the spherical droid reluctantly rolled over to the officer who had interrupted.

“General needs you!”

Beeping a polite farewell to C-3PO and a final thought to the silent R2-D2, BB-8 followed the officer out of the storage area. Behind them, C-3PO bent over his old friend.

“Oh, do try and cheer up, Artoo. This enforced immobility is no good for you. Your cognitive circuits will atrophy from lack of use.”

His affable urging proved no more effective than had BB-8’s authoritative querying. The R2 unit remained as it was: silent, unmoving, and unresponsive.

* * *

In the main conference room, C-3PO worked on BB-8’s flank while Han and several officers looked on. Complying with the protocol droid’s orders, BB-8 obediently opened a locked and sealed port on its side.

“Ah, thank you. That’s it.”

Reaching in, C-3PO removed a tiny device. Turning, he inserted it into a matching slot in the multi-sided table-projector that dominated the center of the room. Immediately, a three-dimensional map filled the space above the flat-topped apparatus with stars, nebulae, and other stellar phenomena. Leia studied the display intently. But though her eyes roved knowledgeably through the compacted cosmos, she failed to find what she was looking for. Her dissatisfaction was unmistakable.

While he was in his own way equally disappointed, C-3PO was not programmed to display it. Instead, he merely expressed a rational regret.

“General, I regret to inform you, but this map recovered from BB-8 is only partially completed. And even worse, it matches no charted system on record. We simply do not have enough information to locate Master Luke..”

From a corner, Han spoke up. “Told you.”

Leia ignored him. “What fools we were, now she’s taken our son.”

“Leia…” he said as he moved toward her.

“Don’t do that,” she growled at him.

It stopped him cold. “Do what?”

Her voice was flat. “Tell me it wasn’t my fault. I should have been the one to help her, instead of thinking Luke could _train_ it out of her.”

Whirling, she stomped off. More than a little bewildered, he followed. Though he caught up to her easily, she didn’t stop, nor did she look in his direction.

“Princesses,” C-3PO chirped when they were out of earshot. 

“Hey, I’m trying to be helpful,” he told her.

She continued to march forward, her gaze set straight ahead. 

“When did that ever _help?_ And don’t say the Death Star.”

Frustrated, he stepped out in front of her to block her path. When he spoke again, his tone softened until he was almost pleading—as much as Han Solo was capable of pleading.

“Will you just stop and listen to me for a minute? _Please?_ ”

The change in tone did more to mollify her than anything else. She eyed him impatiently. 

“I’m listening, Han.”

“I didn’t plan on coming here,” he explained. “I don’t want to force you to rehash all of your memories with Luke. And now our son—” 

She stared at him, shaking her head slowly. 

“ _That’s_ what you think? That I don’t want to be reminded of him, that I want to forget him? _I want Luke back.”_

What could he say to that? What possible response could he give to a willful denial of reason? 

“He’s gone, Leia. There was nothing we could’ve done to stop this, no matter how hard we tried.” His final words were the hardest to get out. “There was too much Dark in her.”

“That’s why I thought Rey could train with Luke,” Leia said. “I didn’t expect her to— to... That’s when I lost Luke. When I lost you both.”

Han dipped his head. 

“We both had to deal with it in our own way.” He shrugged. “I went back to the only thing I was ever good at, not that that ever did any good when I was the one to bring her to him.”

“We all coped as well as we could,” Leia said. “Even Ben settled with being a pilot, but I don’t think it was what he wanted-- now look where’s it has gotten him. 

He met her eyes steadily. “There’s no hope for Rey now, maybe there never was.”

Leia bit her lower lip, refusing to concede with a shake of her head. 

“No. It was Snoke. I’m sure of it now.”

Han drew back slightly. “Snoke?”

She nodded. “There’s something odd about how the academy was destroyed. Something about how the fire— She’s powerful but she couldn’t have done that. Rey only wanted a family, but I can’t imagine how deep Snoke put his claws in her.”

Han’s face darkened.

“I should have known. She used to be so happy at the Academy. But the last time Ben and I visited there was something off; she flinched even when nobody was talking to her.” He leaned in close with a ghost of a smile, always trying to lift her mood just like old times, “she barely mooned over Ben, too.” 

They chuckled together with the fond memories of the younger and bright girl following Ben around with each supply drop, grasping the hands of each other, then sobered. 

“It wasn’t our fault.” Leia nodded with the affirmation. “He seduced her to the dark side. But we can still bring her home. Me, you, and Ben.”

He wanted to laugh derisively. If he did, he knew she might never speak to him again. “Me? No. If Luke couldn’t reach her, with all his skills and training, how can I?”

She was nodding slowly. “Luke is a Jedi. But you’re the one she _trusted_. There’s still light in her. I know it. I want to trust that she won’t let Ben get hurt, but you need to go, _now._ ”

* * *

The complex restraining apparatus held Ben upright against an angled platform in the cell. He woke slowly. Disoriented, at first he thought he was alone as he cracked his eyes open. His oversight was understandable since the other person in the holding area did not move, did not make a sound, and barely seemed to breathe if not for the low rasp of her modulator. If not for her force signature caressing against him in jagged strokes, the tension she held in her perfect posture pooled into the base of his skull. 

Though startled by her unsettlingly silent presence, he took a moment to take stock of his surroundings. Cool, recycled air replaced the humidity of Takodana. The last thing he remembered was the confrontation in the forest, the sounds of battle, and sending Poe’s droid to safety. Then, Rey’s sloppy mind probe. The pain. His efforts to shut her out, and the contemptuous ease with which his mental defenses had been brushed aside. Even now, there was a lingering ache behind his eyes. Or maybe that was Rey. 

“It’s not,” she rasps. 

Ben knew the rumors that finesse in the Force was not what she was known for. She bristled and shifted her shoulders beneath her heavy hood at the voiceless accusation but stayed eerily silent, watching. He can taste Snoke’s influence in her, in the darkness that sparks. The pressure built until light hurt his eyes and she pulled back in a show of restraint.

The forest was gone. So was Maz’s castle. Bereft of a point of reference, he had no choice but to ask. 

“Where am I?”

“Does it matter?” In Rey’s voice was an unexpected gentleness. Not quite sympathy, but something less than the hostility with which she had confronted him within the forest. “You’re my guest.” 

With an ease that was more frightening than any physical approach, Rey waved casually in his direction. A couple of clicks and the restraints fell away from his arms. Ben tried to take the demonstration in stride as he rubbed his wrists. The last thing he wanted was for her to think she could intimidate him more than she already had. Looking around the room, he confirmed that they were alone. 

“What happened to the others?” 

Rey sniffed disdainfully. 

“You mean the traitors, murderers, and thieves you call friends? Consider carefully now: I could easily tell you they were killed, slain righteously in battle by superior forces. But I would prefer to be honest with you from the beginning. You will be relieved to hear that I have no idea.”

He stared at her. Though at the moment she was calm and conversational, he could not escape the feeling that a wrong word, an unsatisfactory response, might set her off. Be very careful with her, he told himself. 

Her lupine mask seemed to smile. 

“You still want to kill me,” she murmured. 

Ben’s true self got the better of him and he replied tactlessly, despite the danger, or because of it. “That happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask.”   
He had a moment to ponder her possible reaction and to fear it. She didn’t do as he expected. Instead, she reached up, unlatched and removed the mask. Ben just stared at her in silence. 

The enforcer of the First Order and Snoke’s rabid dog was heartbreakingly young.

Static hissed and popped in his ears. Torment etched smooth with sand, with ashes, with the sediment of Jakku still shaking loose in his clothing lines her vibrant, hazel irises. Her eyes are peculiar creatures, somehow ageless and uncorrupted by the horrors she’s endured and created. They’re clear and terrifying with how much they can see. The discolored, bruised skin beneath twitched at Ben’s thought of how closely he had been seduced to the dark side.

Rey, with unsuitably bleached skin, denied the sun yet kissed with freckles and fury in her brow, was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Ben blinked.

All sensation that plucked at the edge of his mind vanished as she took a half step back. The corner of her mouth tight with confusion. 

“Is it true then?” she finally asked, reigning in her contempt to keep her voice from cracking. “You’re just a pilot for the Resistance now?” 

Ben didn’t respond so Rey changed the subject. 

“Tell me about the droid.” 

He swallowed, distracted by the pale freckles on her skin, and answered her mechanically.

“It’s a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator, internal self-correcting gyroscopic propulsion system, optics corrected to—”

“I am familiar with the general droid technical specifications. I’m not looking to buy one,” she snapped at him with bemusement and exasperation. “What I want is located in its memory. The navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire. I need the last piece. And somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you. You. Fodder of the Resistance.”

Ben looked away. When he maintained his silence, she almost sighed. Shorter than him and vibrating with terrible power as if his presence challenged her and struck against her essence as sharply as metal against a tuning fork. 

“You know I can take whatever I want.” 

He had no doubt. 

“Then you don’t need me to tell you anything.” 

“True,” she said, resigned. “I would have preferred to avoid this. Despite what you may believe, it gives me no pleasure. I’ll be gentle and I _will_ take what I need.” 

Ben didn’t flinch when she reached up and pressed the fingertips of her skin-warm gloves to his face. Sudden trepidation flashed in his eyes as she moved closer. He recoiled but has nowhere to go until he’s flush with the interrogation board again. The sensation wasn’t instant but gradually hummed over his skin, felt in the root of his teeth. 

They reacted to the feeling that passed between them, the energy they recognize in each other. Then it’s gone, understanding quick to melt until only two adversaries stand in the room. More forceful, Rey pushed into his mind, brushing past his awkward attempts to her out. While she investigated his mind, she spoke softly. 

“You’re so lonely,” she murmurs, close to his ear, as she searched for what she needed. A thin smile crossed her face, the curve of her mouth made his scalp prickle. “So afraid to leave. At night, desperate for sleep… you imagine an ocean. I see it— I see the island.” 

Tears pooled and stuck to his lashes from the effort he made to withstand her. He tried to physically push her away, but his body refused him just as it did on Takodana. 

“Han Solo,” she suddenly scoffed as she continued to shift through his mind relentlessly, there was a new edge to the blade driven into his memories. “Your father. You find him… disappointing. It must pain you to have something in common with a creature in a mask.” 

All the rage and terror bottled up inside him came out as he turned to meet her stare. Her dark lashes tipped in blonde lowered to cover her gaze but peeked up at him with unveiled curiosity.

“Get— out— of— my— head.” 

It only made her lean closer, enhancing his feeling of complete helplessness as she reached up on her toes to whisper in his ear. 

“Ben— you’ve seen the map. It’s in there… and now you’ll give it to me.” Her head turns toward him, warm breath against his jaw. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.” 

Where the strength to defy her came from he didn’t know, but if anything, his voice grew rougher to spite her. _”I’m not giving you anything.”_

“We’ll see,” she said. Her response reflected her unconcern.

Narrowing her gaze and her focus, she locked eyes with him. Ben met her stare without trying to look away; despite the pain, he was strong. He just glared, trying not to flinch, not to blink as she worked. 

He watched as confidence began to slip away. The barrier she had slammed into made them both jolt and stopped her cold. She looked less certain as she pushed, hard, and went nowhere further. Her effort seemed to make him grow in strength, latching onto her technique and fighting against her intrusion. The ferocity of their confrontation built until it hit critical mass. 

A look of amazement replaced the fear on Ben’s face as he discovered the unthinkable. He’s in _her_ mind. Stunned at the realization, he found himself inexorably drawn to— to…

“You,” he heard himself saying clearly, “you’re _afraid._ That you’ll never truly belong— to the Dark.” 

Her hand pulled sharply away from his cheek as if his skin had suddenly turned white-hot. Confused, rattled, she stumbled back. Ben’s gaze followed her. His eyes were the same, but something else had changed— something behind them, in his stare and his posture. Wordlessly, she moved to leave and, at the last moment, gestured powerfully in his direction. He slammed into the platform, the restraints snapped back into place as he blinked against the fog in his mind. 

She donned her mask and left him. In the corridor, a stunned Kira Ren found that she was breathing hard. That in itself was unsettling. She did not know what transpired in the cell and, not knowing, was left uncertain how to proceed. Ren was spared further bewilderment when a trooper appeared, coming toward her. Straightening, she gathered herself. 

The trooper halted. His evident discomfort at having to speak to Ren bolstered her shaken persona. 

“Sir! The Supreme Leader has requested your presence.” 

Ren nodded and headed off in the necessary direction. The trooper which began to accompany her did not pay attention when she looked back over her shoulder.   
In the holding cell, Ben relaxed against the platform. That he could relax at all felt significantly surreal. Something of great consequence passed between them. How and what, he did not know. Even in his present situation, he felt encouraged, hope sparked a light in his chest, though why that should be he was still uncertain. 

One thing was clear. He was going to be given time to contemplate it.

* * *

In the main conference room of the base on D’Qar, an ongoing strategy session had brought together the leaders of the Resistance. Leia, Poe, C-3PO, Han, and an assortment of senior officers including Statura and Ackbar were assembled around a three-dimensional map of an isolated, frozen planet that up until now had not been worth a hopeful visit from a minor trading ship. Finn was present, too, since it was his information about the world in question that had prompted the gathering.

“The scan data from Captain Snap Wexley’s reconnaissance flight confirms everything Finn has told us,” Poe announced to the group.

Wexley spoke up. “They’ve built a new kind of hyperspace weapon within the planet itself. Something that can fire across interstellar distances in the equivalent of real time.” His expression showed his incredulity. “I’ve had my share of technical training, but I can’t even imagine how that’s possible.”

This time Finn responded. “I can’t, either, but those of us assigned to the base heard rumors that it doesn’t operate in what we’d call normal hyperspace. It fires through a hole in the continuum that it makes itself. Everybody was calling it ‘sub’-hyperspace. That’s how it can arrive in moments across a distance like that between the base and the Hosnian system. The amount of energy required to do that is…” His voice dropped. “Well, we’ve seen how much energy is involved. All I know is that it involves a lot of zeros following the primary number.”

Wexley nodded slowly. “We’re not sure how to describe a weapon of this scale. Our people have come up with some ideas regarding the rapid overheating and subsequent implosion of a planetary core, but the mechanism to induce that so far escapes them.”

One of the oldest officers in the room gestured sharply, a look of horror on his face. “It’s another Death Star!”

Poe’s expression tightened. “I wish that were the case, Major Ematt. But in analyzing everything Finn has told us and coupling that with the information we have been able to gather, this is what we are facing.” He waved a hand over a nearby control. An image of the Death Star appeared beside that of the frozen world.

“This was the Death Star,” the pilot observed. Another control and the image shrank, down to near nothing, until it was a small sphere beside the cold planet. “This is what Finn tells us is called Starkiller Base.”

Leia stared at the invidious imagery. If not for the harsh fact that tens of millions of deaths were involved, the side-by-side comparisons would have been laughable. Once more, memories of the destruction of Alderaan flooded back and once more she had to force them aside.

“How can they power a weapon of such magnitude?” she asked.

Poe and Ackbar looked to Finn. Unsure of himself, he hesitated. He was no scientist, no engineer, not even a technician. Yes, he had overheard a number of related conversations, but given what was riding on what up until now had been only hearsay to him, he was reluctant to share them.

Sensing his hesitation, Leia was quick to prompt him. “Finn, please speak up.”

He looked across at her. “I’m not sure of the authenticity of what I’ve heard or been told.”

“Whatever it is, it’s volumes more than anything we know,” she assured him. “Tell us, and let our technical people be the judge of your words.”

Taking a deep breath, he gestured at the image of the base. “As you already know, I was assigned there. In the course of performing my duties, I was rotated to multiple locations around the planet. One is on the side opposite of where the weapon is discharged.”

An incredulous Statura cut him off. “The weapon system is situated on both sides of the planet?”

Finn looked at the admiral. “Not only is it located on both sides, the system actually runs through the planetary core.”

Murmurs of disbelief rose from those gathered around the projection console.

“As near as I understand it,” Finn continued, “enormous arrays of specially designed collectors use the power of a sun to attract and send dark energy to a containment unit at the core of the planet, where it is held and built up inside that containment unit until the weapon is ready to fire.”

“Impossible,” Ackbar insisted. “Although we know there is more dark energy in the universe than anything else, and that it exists everywhere around us, it is so diffuse that it can barely be detected. Let alone concentrated.”

Finn persisted, despite the discomfort he felt at disagreeing with someone of Ackbar’s rank and experience. “It can be, and it is,” he responded with certainty.

Statura, at least, seemed ready to believe. “If the engineering could be worked out,” he observed, “one would have access to an almost literally infinite source of energy.”

Finn nodded. “General Hux told us it’s the most powerful weapon ever built. He said that it can reach halfway across the galaxy.” Fresh murmurs of disbelief greeted this latest assertion. “And in real-time. Because it doesn’t reach across the galaxy; it reaches through it.” He shook his head, which was starting to hurt from the effort of trying to explain what he had overheard but did not understand.

Han Solo understood, all right. Understood what had to be done.

“Okay, so it’s impossible, and it’s big. How do we blow it up?” The attention in the room shifted to him. His expression was knowing. “I don’t care how big it is; there’s always a way to do that.”

Having cut through science, he waited for suggestions. None were forthcoming.

“We have to wait until the technical staff has run their detailed analysis,” Wexley said. “Then, once they’ve done that—”

Leia cut him off. Han grinned, but not so she could see it. She was good at cutting people off, he knew.

“We don’t have time to wait on analyses and scientific hypotheses. Han’s right. We have to act, and act now.” He eyed her in surprise—and concealed that reaction, too.

“This is the moment that counts,” she continued. “Everything we’ve ever fought for is at stake. We can’t wait on theories. We need something, anything, so we can fight back!” She straightened. “We have to take this weapon down before it can be used again.”

It was not surprising to hear that it was Statura, the most senior officer in the room with an actual scientific background, who finally put forth a notion.

“I can’t prove this, but for this amount of power to be restrained until such time as it is released, or fired, there has to be some new, advanced kind of containment field.” He nodded toward Finn. “Our friend here confirms as much. The question is: What kind of field?”

“I heard that it involved the planet’s own magnetic field,” Finn told him, “and something more.”

“Yes, yes.” Statura was deep in thought. “A planetary magnetic field, even a strong one, would not be enough to contain the amount of energy that we have seen deployed. Also as you say, Finn, there is more involved. I am thinking of some kind of oscillating field. If it oscillates rapidly enough, much less energy would be required to sustain it than if it was maintained at a steady state.”

“I don’t know about stuff like that.” Finn leaned into the holographic map and enlarged a section of the planetary surface until a massive hexagonal structure came into view. “But this is where the containment and oscillation field control system is located.”

Statura was most pleased. “Excellent, Mr. Finn!” The admiral’s gaze traveled around the circle of colleagues. “But disabling this, while a relatively straightforward proposition, would not necessarily destroy the weapon—only render it temporarily unusable until the control system could be rebuilt.”

“We’d likely get only one shot at it,” Poe put in. “What Admiral Ackbar said about keeping it secret would only work as long as its location remains unknown. Once the First Order realizes that we know where it is, they’d throw everything they’ve got into defending it with ships, mobile stations, and long-range detectors. We might never get close to it again.”

Leia nodded agreement. “Then our first attack must succeed.” She looked across at Statura. “What do you recommend, Admiral?”

“Assuming for the moment that my hurried supposition is reasonably correct, the weapon would be at its most vulnerable when, as it were, it is fully loaded.” Once again he regarded the others. “If the containment field oscillator were somehow destroyed at that moment, it would release the accumulated energy not in a line of fire, but throughout the planetary core where it is being held. If it did not result in the complete destruction of the base, at the very least it would permanently cripple the weapon.”

His flare of white hair and beard giving him the look of a prophet, Major Ematt spoke up. “Maybe even the entire planet on which it’s based.”

As the discussion continued, an officer appeared and handed Leia a readout. She studied it intently as the debate swirled around her.

“None of this is possible,” a downcast Ackbar postulated. “While the planet in question may at present be deliberately underdefended, the instant we move forces out of hiding and in its direction, the First Order will realize that we know the location of the weapon. They will mobilize everything in the vicinity to protect it. Their fleet is too large for us to fight our way through. Additionally, despite what Poe theorizes, I would wager they must already have at least a minimal planetary shield in place. Plainly, they can access the energy to support such a defense.” He looked at Finn, whose reply was not encouraging.

“Yes, such a shield does exist.”

“The situation could not be worse,” C-3PO murmured.

Raising a hand for attention, Leia held up the readout. “According to this, we don’t have time to study the situation even if we decided to do so. Our team has detected an enormous quantity of dark energy surging toward the world Finn has identified for us. That can only mean one thing.” She paused for emphasis. “They’re loading the weapon again. I think we can all take a good guess as to what their next target will be.”

C-3PO lowered his golden head. “I was wrong. It can be worse.”

Seeing the downcast expressions of those around him, Poe reached out and indicated the containment control structure. “They may raise their shields, but if we can find a way past them, we can and will hit that oscillator with everything we’ve got.”

Han grinned broadly.No wonder he and Ben were such good friends, he thought. 

Ackbar remained pessimistic. “Any plan is pointless as long as their shields are in place. A proper planetary defense system, as this one is sure to have, will not allow for ‘a way past them.’ ”

Han was not so easily discouraged. “Okay, so first we disable the shields.” He turned to Finn. “Kid, you worked there. Whatcha got?”

Finn’s eyes slowly widened as he thought back. “I can do it. Shut down their shields. I—” He was nodding vigorously, as much to himself as to the others. “I know where the relevant controls are located.” Realization dampened some of his initial enthusiasm. “But I need to be there, of course. On the planet, with access to the location.”

“I’ll get you there.”

Gazing at Han, Leia saw something that had been absent from her life for a long, long time: Solo bravado. “Han, _how?”_

He grinned broadly at her. She had missed that, too, she realized.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

An energized Poe took over. “All right, so we disable their shields, take out the containment oscillation controls, and destroy their big gun. Even if it can fire halfway across the galaxy and it’s too big for us to destroy, we can make sure it blows itself to pieces. Sounds like a plan. Let’s move!”

* * *

In the vast, darkened assembly chamber of Starkiller Base were only two figures: one tall and uncertain, the other looming and imperious. For all their isolation, they seemed to somehow fill the room.

There was as much curiosity in Supreme Leader Snoke’s voice as there was disappointment. “He resisted _you?”_

“He is not traditionally trained, but strong with the Force. Stronger than he knows.” Her mask off, Ren replied with what seemed to be her usual assurance. No one else would have sensed a difference. Snoke did.

The Supreme Leader’s voice was flat. “You have compassion for him, Ben Solo.”

“No—never. Compassion? For an enemy of the Order?”

“I perceive the problem,” Snoke intoned. “It isn’t his strength that is making you fail. It’s your weakness.” The rebuke hurt, but Kira didn’t show it. “Where is the droid?”

Smooth and unctuous, the voice of General Hux rang out in the assembly hall before Ren could respond. “Ren believed it was no longer of value to us.” Turning, the quietly livid Kira followed the approach of the increasingly confident officer.

“She believed that the man was all we needed. That she could obtain from him everything necessary. As a result, although we cannot be certain, it is likely that the droid has been returned to the hands of the enemy.”

Though visibly angry, Snoke’s tone remained unchanged. “Have we located the main Resistance base?”

Hux was clearly gratified to be the bearer of good news. “We were able to track their reconnaissance ship back to the Ileenium system. We are coordinating with our own reconnaissance craft in the area in order to lock down the specific location of their base.”

Snoke replied with cold satisfaction. “We do not need it. Prepare the weapon. Destroy their system.”

Collected and composed as he was, Hux was not immune to anticipation. Kira spoke first, “The system? Supreme Leader, multiple viable worlds circle Ileenium. Following the destruction of the Hosnian worlds, would it not be worthwhile simply to destroy their base and claim the remainder for the Order? We will have the location of the base within a matter of hours and—”

Snoke cut her off. “We cannot wait. Not even for hours. Hours that may permit as little as one ship to depart with the information that will allow them to find Skywalker. That would be one ship too many. The more time we give them, the more likely the chance, however slight, that they will find Skywalker and convince him to return to challenge our power. As soon as the weapon is fully charged, I want the entire Ileenium system destroyed.”

Daring to disagree, Kira took a step forward. Even Hux couldn’t ignore the sudden crackle in the air. “No—Supreme Leader, I can get the map from him, and that will be the end of it. I just need your guidance.”

“And you promised me when it came to destroying the Resistance you wouldn’t fail me.” The threatening figure of Snoke leaned toward Ren. “Who knows if copies of the map have already been made and sent out of the system, to other, minor Resistance outposts? But those who are most aware of its significance will all likely be gathered at their main base. Destroy that, destroy them, and we may at least feel a little more confident that the way to Skywalker is eradicated. Even if copies have been made and exported, the annihilation of their leadership will give pause to any survivors who might dare to contemplate further resistance to us.” He sat back. “For that reason alone I would order the destruction of the system, even if there was no assurance it would also put an end to this accursed map.” He turned to Hux.

“General, prepare the weapon. With the same efficiency, you have already demonstrated.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader!”

Buoyed by the praise, Hux turned and strode quickly out of the hall. That left Snoke to fix his eyes on its sole remaining occupant.

“Kira Ren. It appears that a reminder is in order. So I will show you the dark side. _Bring Ben Solo to me.”_

* * *

Slightly apart from the rush of activity that filled the Resistance base, an unlikely pair was going through the stages of performing a final checkout on an old but deceptively fast freighter. Chewbacca and Finn moved quickly to comply with Han’s orders.

“Chewie, check the horizontal booster.” A growling response provoked an equally terse one from the Millennium Falcon’s owner. “I don’t care what the onboard readouts say: There’s no substitute for a final visual inspection. You know that. Finn, careful with those dentons. They’re explosives.”

Halting, Finn gaped at the load he was carrying. “They are?” He faltered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t want to make you nervous,” Han replied. “When you’ve finished loading those, go talk to some of those X-wing techs and see if you can scare us up a backup thermal regulator.”

The voice that joined in was one that had always been able to bring him to a stop in whatever he happened to be doing. He turned to see Leia approaching.

“No matter how much we fought,” she said, “I always hated watching you leave.”

He grinned. “That’s why I left. To make you miss me.”

For the first time in quite a while, she laughed freely. It was infectious, happy, and, these days, all too rare. “Well, thank you for that, anyway.”

He turned reflective. “It wasn’t all bad, was it? I know we argued a lot.” He smiled affectionately. “Maybe it’s because we both have such shy, retiring personalities. Of course, if you’d only done what I said…”

“And you’d only done what I asked,” she riposted, still smiling.

He chuckled softly. “I mean, some of it was—good.”

“Pretty good,” she agreed, nodding.

“Some things never change.”

“Yep.” She glanced downward, remembering, then met his gaze once more. “You still drive me crazy.”

“Crazy as in crazy good, or crazy as in borderline insane?”

“Probably a little of both,” she admitted.

He put his hands on her shoulders, and thirty years fell away in an instant. “Leia, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.”

Fighting to hold back tears, she put a finger to his lips. “Tell me when you get back.”

He started to object, caught himself. There’d been too much arguing over the years, he knew. This time he really might not come back; the last thing he wanted was to part on even a semblance of a spat. Instead, he took her into his arms, which really was much better than arguing, or even talking. They stood like that for a long moment, holding tightly to each other.

“Bring our boy back,” Leia whispered.

He nodded without speaking. If nothing else, in thirty years he had learned when to be quiet.

* * *

What had happened?

Shackled and unable to move, Ben lay on the inclined platform in his restraints, pondering the encounter with R— Kira Ren. At first, there had been the same pain and fear he had felt in the forest on Takodana. It had intensified as she had probed deeper and he had fought to resist. Then—he _had_ resisted. More than that, it was as if his resistance had somehow turned the probing back on her. For a brief instant, he had been in her mind. Ben could remember clearly his shock, then concern, and finally a retreat. She had pulled away from him, and out of his mind, with a suddenness that bespoke—not fright; something else. Apprehension, Ben decided. Whatever he had done had thrown her badly off balance. She had withdrawn: no doubt not only to consider what had taken place but also to decide how to proceed with him. That meant, most likely, she would be back. Ben would do anything to avoid that.

And that is what he proceeded to do.

If he could push her out of his mind and enter hers, what else could he do? What might he be able to do with regard to someone else the way he had done to Rey? Ben had wished he listened more closely to Uncle Luke’s retellings of various escapades, had accepted his power like a true Skywalker. But Ben less skilled, decidedly untrained in the ways of the Force, but perhaps— a single guard posted just inside the front of his cell?

“Hey, buckethead!”

The stormtrooper turned toward him, patently unconcerned and not a little bored. Ben studied him closely, willed himself not to think of Finn under the mask. As the trooper was about to speak, Ben addressed him clearly and firmly—and not only with his voice.

“You will remove these restraints. And you will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to your living quarters.”

He eyed Ben silently. He did not look in the least intimidated. Ben’s confidence wavered as he shifted slightly in his bonds; he repeated what he had said with as much authority as he could muster.

“You will remove these restraints. And you will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to your living quarters. You will speak of this encounter to no one.”

Raising the heavy, black-and-white rifle he held, the trooper came toward him. Heart pounding, he watched him approach. Was he going to be killed, freed, or maybe laughed at? Halting before him, he looked down into his eyes. When he spoke again, there was a notable alteration in his voice. It was significantly less confrontational and—distant.

“I will remove these restraints. And leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to my living quarters. I will speak of this encounter to no one.”

Working methodically, he unlatched Ben’s shackles. He stood and stared at him for a moment, then turned and wordlessly started for the doorway. Lying in shock on the reclined platform, Ben hardly knew what to do next. He was free. No, he corrected herself: he was free of this cell. That hardly constituted freedom.

But it was a beginning.

As the guard reached the doorway, he spoke hastily. “And you will drop your weapon.”

“I will drop my weapon,” he responded in the same uninflected voice. This he proceeded to do and dropped the rifle down on the floor, then turned left into the outside corridor to depart in silence.

For a long moment, Ben stared at the open portal. Deciding that it was not a joke and that the guard was not waiting for him just outside the cell, he moved to pick up the weapon.

**Author's Note:**

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